


Too Long Apart to Let You Go

by Storystuff



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Drifting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Gen but also pre-slash? Explained in the notes, Hurt/Comfort, Pacific Rim 2 Spoilers, Post Uprising, Slight Horror Elements, Some mention of bodily harm, recovery fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-04-08 05:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 84,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14098026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Storystuff/pseuds/Storystuff
Summary: Spoilers for Pacific Rim 2 ...Newt isn't strong enough to fight the Precursors alone, but he's not alone anymore. Hermann isn't going to let Newt go so easily.





	1. A Change of Tactics

**Author's Note:**

> There’s gonna be a bunch of fics dealing with the aftermath of PR2 but after seeing the movie I couldn’t stop writing this! Hopefully this is gonna be a multi-chap fic – I say hopefully because I’m currently working 3 jobs and writing 25,000 words of essays but I’m nothing if not a masochist. Hopefully I’ll post a chapter a week but I’m not sure what form this fic will really take yet, how much time I’ll have to perfect it as I want it, etc. 
> 
> Quick note on why this fic is gen: I ship Newmann but I feel like this fic isn’t the time or place for romance – it’s about trauma and recovery and the deep connection they share. It’s definitely in a slash universe, i.e. I see them together after the end of this fic, but maybe not straight away. They’re in love in the way that Hermann/Newton always are but romance isn’t the plot of this fic – their bond to me runs deeper than that. So that’s why no slash tag for the contents of this fic, though it’s set in a universe where I believe they’ll be together… if that makes sense? Sorry if that disappoints or confuses anyone.

Hermann had waited outside the door of the cell for too long. There wasn’t anything else to call it; interrogation room sounded too frightening, too brutal, containment facility sounded so formal, so unlike a place Newton would ever be in. But then, Hermann reminded himself, Newton wasn’t exactly himself these days.

He’d been there for hours, and his leg had started to ache something awful. In truth, he’d been there on-and-off for two weeks, day in, day out, seeing the door hiss open and closed every time sometime walked in to question Newt. Pentecost, Lambert, even a psychologist at one point, which had made Hermann laugh. They hadn’t let Hermann in to see him yet, citing regulations that Hermann knew were made up but couldn’t argue with. He didn’t blame them. He knew he was almost as much a security risk as Newton was, if he got in there with him. Half the base seemed to think that he would try and invent an escape for his ex-lab-partner at any time. Hermann wasn’t stupid, however, and he had enough PhDs to prove that. The thing in there wasn’t Newt, not really. Not yet. But if Hermann could persuade Pentecost to hear him out, he was prepared to make a darned good go of getting him back.

The door to the cell opened with a clang and Jake Pentecost marched out at such a speed that he didn’t even notice Hermann propped against the wall. Hermann pushed himself from the now warmed steel, limping quickly after the ranger.

“Has he said anything new?” Hermann asked urgently. Jake shook his head.

“Same as yesterday. And the day before, and last week. The Precursors are playing games,” Jake said.He sounded far too tired to be marching directly towards another long flight test.

“Then I suggest we change tactics,” Hermann said, “I have offered to speak with him before and I really think it’s the best-”

“Doctor Gottlieb,” Jake said tiredly.

“Now hear me out, you’ve spoken with him, and Ranger Lambert, and so far he’s been leading you in circles but I believe, with the correct connection, we can bring Newton back.”

“He’s not in there, Gottlieb,” Jake insisted, “I didn’t know Geiszler, but that thing in there is all Precursor.”

“Maybe to you, Ranger Pentecost but I see doctor Newton Geiszler who, given the chance, would most certainly give information on the Precursors if we could just reach him.”

Jake stopped, and Hermann noted with a sinking stomach that they’d reached the door of the flight deck, Pentecost’s stop. People were running about, completing engineering on the damaged Jaegers. Hermann opened his mouth to say more but Jake shook his head helplessly.

“Listen man, I get it. But Geiszler is literally an active enemy agent, if there's even anything left of him,” Jake said.

“He's not, willingly,” Hermann argued.

“I know, but there’s nothing we can do about that. And honestly, if we have to get serious with the Precursors, it’d be better if Newt wasn’t in there, trust me. I don’t want that to happen.”

Hermann blanched, gripping his cane to stop the tremor that ran through him. There had been whispers all around the Shatterdome, refracting off every immovable surface, that Newton Geiszler was days away from wartime interrogation. No more talking. No more bargaining. Just… Hermann didn’t want to think about it. The clumsy, reckless injuries Newt had inflicted on himself on a weekly basis in the lab had been enough for Hermann, he didn’t want to think about the kind of machines they had in the Shatterdome that could easily be used to hurt someone.

“I have a way to get Newt back, I just have to test it,” Hermann urged and Jake seemed to deflate.

“I know you want to try engaging another Drift with him, but I can’t authorize that. You’re a civilian,” Jake said.

“He’s my friend,” Hermann interrupted, “We shared a lab for years and, more than that, we drifted together with the kaiju brain. If there is even a slight chance that I could connect with the real Newt, isn’t that worth a shot? The Precursors won’t give us anything, but Newt would if we can just help him!”

Jake fixed Hermann with a long stare. It was calculating, but soft, and Hermann tried not to flinch under it. He didn’t want pity. Right now he didn’t feel like he deserved it. But there was something akin to understanding in Jake's eyes and Hermann clung to the hope that it sparked. 

“I’d have to square it with Lambert but, you’re right. At this point there’s not many options, safe or otherwise,” Jake said, “’Sides, you pretty much saved the world twice, right? You’ve got as good a shot as any of us.” He patted Hermann firmly on the arm, enough that it actually stung a little and the ranger gave him a grin. It was reckless, utterly practiced and weirdly reminded Hermann of Newt.

Hermann hoped he had more than just as good a shot as they did. For Newt’s sake, at the very least.

 

* * *

 

Convincing Lambert had not been easy. The look on the ranger’s face as he entered the observation room made that clear enough. Jake tried to smooth it over with banal banter but Lambert merely fixed Hermann a look. Hermann wasn’t paying attention, however. From this room, through a two-way mirror, Hermann could see Newt for the first time since he was confined. He looked physically exhausted, but his voice and his squirming in the restrictive metal chair were as energetic as Newt always was. Hermann winced to hear Newt’s voice, which sounded so normal as he whined about the restraints. It was all Hermann could do not to take the keys to the restraints in there with him, just to let Newt move a little. As if reading his mind, Lambert narrowed his eyes at Hermann.

“I don’t think it’s safe letting you in there with Newt alone,” he said. He was stood rigid, arms folded, appraising the doctor with a worried look. “The Precursors are smart,” he explained.

“Fortunately, so am I,” Hermann said, sounding much more confident than he felt. Evidently his doubt showed on his face as Jake chuckled at him, shaking his head.

“I will attempt to initiate a neural handshake with Newton and, in doing so, access the part of him buried beneath the Precursor dominant. Our Drift compatibility should allow for a strong connection and, theoretically, may allow Newt to overthrow the invading force via a neural channel formed by the Drift,” Hermann explained.

“And what if the Precursors get into you? Like, theoretically,” Jake asked.

"They won’t. It requires a strong neural bond to effectively commit to such a neural load, Newton was drifting with the kaiju brain for years before a sufficient connection could be formed.” Hermann tried not to think about years of evenings that Newt must have spent hooked up into the kaiju brain, his nose dribbling blood, his mind filling with kaiju screams. He didn’t dare look through the mirror again at Newt.

“You really think this will work?” Lambert said. Hermann sighed, shoulders sagging.

“It is the only way I can formulate that Newt will be strong enough to fight back against such a powerful neural force. He fought them once in my presence, at Shao Industries, and I believe he can do it again.” Jake and Lambert shared a concerned glance that Hermann refused to acknowledge. They were no doubt sharing the same thought even without the Drift tech, as Jaeger pilots often did, as integrated with each other’s thought processes as they were. Hermann had often felt he could do the same with Newt, even before their Drift. As much as they’d bickered about everything, it was only their ability to really get what made the other tick that made them so volatile. After the war, however, after Newt had moved away, the connection felt like it had faded. Gone cold on one side.

“There’s everything you need to establish the Drift already in there, we had it set out for you,” Lambert said, interrupting Hermann’s thoughts. Hermann blinked, felt the room snap back into focus as his thoughts came back to the present. His hands felt clammy suddenly, and he kept his eyes firmly away from the glass. It was the first time he’d ever felt nervous to see his friend. At the same time, Hermann was keenly aware that, if this didn’t work, this could very well be the last time he saw Newt at all.

“You ready?” Jake asked. Hermann nodded and straightened; headed quickly for the door to the cell.

“We’ll be right through here,” Jake said, tapping the two-way glass quietly. Hermann took a deep breath and entered the cell.

 

* * *

 

The cell was much colder than Hermann had anticipated and he instantly wished he’d worn more than a shirt and his old tattered cardigan. The lights irritated his eyes and he wondered if they did the same for Newton. Newton, who was sat, grinning at him.

“Heya Hermann,” Newt said. It sounded like Newt, that was for sure. For a brief, thrilling moment, Hermann almost believed that Newt was back, that just seeing him might be enough for him to make it to the surface of his mind. But there was something too wide about his smile and the bounce of his knee was calculatingly placed, not sporadic like Newt’s usual movements. Hermann had the uncomfortable idea that the Precursors were making it all too obvious who Hermann was talking to.

Hermann moved to the empty stool that had been provided for him, taking a look at the Drift gear on a moveable metal tray beside it. He sat down, propped his cane against the tray.

“I want to speak with Newton Geiszler,” Hermann said. God, he wanted to talk to Newt so much.

“Too late. He’s not here anymore, he’s dead,” The Precursors said with Newt’s mouth. Their voice was unlike Newt’s, deep and multiplied like something out of the horror movies that Newt used to watch. After the war, they’d spent nights watching them on the sofa in the lab. Hermann had pretended to be disgruntled about the film choice but secretly enjoying the chance to see something he’d never normally choose.

“He spoke to me at Shao Industries, actually,” Hermann said, “I know he’s in there.” The thing that was not-Newton curled its lips into a smile, more filled with malice and cruelty than Newt would, could, ever express.

“Are you sure that was him?” Do you even know the last time you spoke to me? Like, really?” Newt’s voice was bleeding back though and Hermann choked back a sound in his throat. They were using his voice to get to Hermann and, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, it worked. Hearing Newt sound so strained and so far away felt like a punch to the gut.

“When you stopped talking to me and started talking to them? Some friend you are dude,” Newt continued. Newt’s voice was still there but the twisted, condemning expression wasn’t him. Puppy dog hurt, childish rebuke, those were Newt, but not malice. Never sadistic pleasure. It was uncanny, seeing a face that didn’t match the voice Hermann had so often tried to ignore in his ear.

“I want to speak to Newton,” Hermann repeated.

“He’s not here!” The Precursors shouted. Hermann jumped in his seat, the metal legs scraping the floor. The Precursors laughed and it was a thoroughly foreign sound. Hermann glared.

“Fine, if you want to be like that, that’s fine,” Hermann snapped. For a second it felt like he was talking to Newt again, bickering over the line in their lab.

“Oh doctor Gottlieb,” the Precursors mocked, “Don’t be upset. If Newton could speak, he’d say he was ever so sorry.”

“Then he’s in there?” Hermann said, hope flaring in his chest. Newt looked around with an exaggerated conspiratorial squint before leaning closer in his chair.

“That would be telling, dude,” Newt’s voice whispered.

Hermann felt his patience snap like a rubber band and he snatched up the Drift headset on the tray next to him.

“Ooh, Herm are we going to drift again?” Newt exclaimed and Hermann closed his eyes a second to orient himself against that excited, hopeful voice. The voice that had pulled Hermann through a cancelled apocalypse, which had been Hermann’s fondest memories of his friend even during the most awful moments of the war. As much as Newt’s excitement about the kaiju had annoyed him (and if he was a spiteful man, Hermann would love to gloat about who was right about that particular danger), Newt’s excitement as a scientist had been frankly inspirational. He was a sheer force of nature in the lab, pushing towards answers with an intensity that bordered on the insane. They’d never have saved the world without him. And now, he was the one in danger of destroying it.

"Man, that’s so cool,” Newt blabbered, “I mean, are you sure? With these guys in my head, I really don’t think that’s actually such a good idea Hermann, I mean, seriously. They’re really strong, like _really_ strong.”

Hermann pushed his own helmet firmly onto his head and stood carefully to place the other on Newt’s. Newt was well enough restrained that Hermann didn’t worry about the proximity, but he grimaced when his hand touched Newt’s limp, greasy hair. Newt would hate it. If he was really here, he’d be complaining about needing a shower, about how he was actually kind of starting to smoke up the place guys, it smells really bad in here, can I get some product for my hair? Hermann made sure the headset was firmly in place.

“I suppose we’ll test how strong they are, won’t we Newton?” Hermann said, hoping that somewhere in there, Newt could hear him.

“He’s not here,” the Precursors said.

"If you can hear me Newton, it’s Hermann. I’m opening up a neural handshake with you again,” Hermann explained, ignoring the Precursor’s goading smile, “If you’re in there, I will need you to fight.”

“He’s not strong enough,” Newt said, then pantomimed recognition of his mistake, “I’m not strong enough, I mean. Come on Hermann, we both know I’m not getting out of here right?”

Hermann gritted his teeth and picked up the controls. “I suppose we’ll see about that too,” Hermann said and pressed the button.

The last thing Hermann heard as he felt his brain surge into the handshake, were Newton’s agonized screams.


	2. Drift and Split

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I didn’t realise I had to check a “this work has multiple chapters” box, sorry guys! I’m new to multi-chap fics on Ao3, so please be patient with my folly.   
> I don’t know how ya’ll will take to this chapter because I’ve taken quite a different approach to the idea of a Drift with a Precursor-infected brain (although, from my research, I realise that how Headspace is communicated can be different in all kinds of situations). There’ll be some horror elements to this fic in this way, with the themes of possession so that’s the kind of Drift I’m going for here. As I say, you may like it or it may not work, let me know what you think!  
> Also: WARNING for a (not too graphic) injury description at the end of this chapter!!

It was nothing like the first Drift that Hermann had experienced with Newt.

The initial vivid spark of connection was painful. Screeching Kaiju and the sharp sear of the Anteverse flooded Hermann’s senses. He could distantly feel his body convulsing before the handshake opened fully, and he felt the awareness of himself drift away. It didn’t feel like drifting with Newton’s brain. It wasn’t the same brilliant stroke of memories and eclectic, infuriating vitality; rather it felt cracked and splintered like a wooden beam under too much weight.

Kaiju roared into an electric night. Noise and fury and pain made Hermann want to draw back into his own mind and disconnect the connection, but he forced himself to remember why he was here.

_Newton_. Hermann had no idea how one Drifted like this, how to navigate a mind this fractured. Most neural handshakes were light and intuitive, allowing one to sense the other’s thoughts in the vaguest of ways. Some were more intense, built from memories and vivid scenarios that one could, quite literally, insert oneself into. But Newt’s mind felt split open, more like a sprawl of a landscape than highways of logical thought. Newton wasn’t to be easily found within his own mind. Wherever he had retreated from, the Precursors had inhabited.

The Precursor images died as Hermann focused, reaching out with his own thoughts as best he could to the edges of Newt’s flayed mind. It hurt. Every neuron and passageway felt singed and damaged, and Hermann vaguely wondered what a CAT scan of Newt’s brain would show. He almost didn’t want to know, not even for science.

_Newton, where are you?_ Hermann thought. The Drift seemed to stutter, like there was a fault in the wires and suddenly the confusing mess of memory and aimless pain dropped away. Suddenly Hermann was standing, solid, in a room he didn’t recognise. A memory, he understood. Yet, instead of observing as himself, Hermann looked down to see Newt’s tattooed arms, Newt’s dirty, rolled-up lab coat. The room around him was recognisable at least as Newt’s room, perhaps his quarters at Shao Industries, messy and bathed in… yellow? Hermann, _Newt_ , turned and he could see where the yellow light was coming from.

The Kaiju brain floated silently in the tank labelled “Alice”. Newt’s memory tingled with thrill and wonder, and Hermann wished that the Drift wasn’t so vivid. The feeling made him want to cry in his own mind. What the hell had Newt been thinking?

Newt sat down slowly in front of Alice, that damned mistake that Hermann should never have let Newt keep, and picked up the Drift helmet. _Stop_ , Hermann wanted to beg, but the memory wasn’t his own. _Stop!_ The memory juddered to a halt and Hermann was plunged into others. Newt yelling unwillingly at an intern, night upon night of Drifts with Alice, inviting Hermann to dinner because dude, you just gotta meet Alice, she’s great! Then, as suddenly as they came, the memories stopped and Hermann was back in Newt’s room, the Kaiju tank spilling its sickly light over everything once more. Hermann realised with a frown that he was himself, standing almost solidly in the space.

This kind of Drift was more vivid and sensitive than anything Hermann had heard of. The memories and sensations were an expected variable but this weirdly solid, mapped-out space was less a memory and more a part of Newt’s imagination. The thought gave Hermann pause. This felt different. It was a testable hypothesis, at least.

“Newt?” Hermann called. He was surprised to hear his own voice echo through the room, clear and solid. Silence for a long moment. Hermann felt as if Alice was watching him, eyeless, from the tank.

A loud thud at the door. Hermann startled backwards. His elbow hit something on the dresser, causing it to fall to the floor with a brittle smash. He looked down and frowned; shards of smashed glass were littered at his feet, the form oddly familiar. Curious, he lifted his elbow and looked behind him. An upturned test tube rack was teetering on the edge of the dresser among the various items of laundry and Kaiju drawings. Hermann gave a precursory look around the room. No other test tubes, no lab equipment. Maybe Newt had simply brought work home with him, but something about it felt incongruous. Wrong. It didn’t belong here. It wasn’t part of this world, it was part of… somewhere else. Somewhere familiar.

Hermann glanced to the Kaiju tank and felt his heartbeat spike.

No Alice.

Dreamlike, Hermann felt his hand move of its own accord, tracing the lines of the test tube rack with shaking fingers. He looked at the door which had caused him to startle, and realised that it wasn’t closed after all. Had it been closed before? Had Hermann imagined it? Was that even possible? Cavernous black space was all that Hermann could see through the gap.

“Newt?” Hermann called, voice tremulous. More silence. And then, from the other side of the door, a sob.

With a start, Hermann limped quickly to the door, wrenching it open with a courage he barely felt. Total blackness greeted him on the other side and Newt’s bedroom seemed to fade away like a memory, the yellow glow of the tank receding like a shadow.

“Hermann?” Hermann’s heart leapt. It was Newt. He was somewhere in this blackness, sounding small and frightened, but undeniably Newton.

“Newt?” Hermann whispered. The cavernous black seemed to swallow the sound whole, answering only with a yawning, splitting silence. The Drift felt stretched thin in here, a burgeoning pain beginning to blossom in Hermann’s head.

“Newton, where are you? I can’t see anything in here,” Hermann said.

“Hermann, they’re in here. They’re getting closer.” Newton’s voice was shaking hard and Hermann couldn’t quite place where he was, so he stumbled forward, one hand on his cane, the other held in front of him blindly.

“They’re gonna find me, man,” Newton said, “I’m- I’m not safe, you’re not safe! You gotta get out of here Hermann, I’m not-” Newton cut off suddenly.

“Newton?”

Without warning, light burst around Hermann and he staggered, an onslaught of images barrelling into his brain; Precursors, Kaiju, Newt, shivering and shaking like a leaf on the floor of his apartment.

“Newton!” Hermann cried. The images died and with a gasp, Hermann realised that it wasn’t just light, but the electric fizz of halogen bulbs around him and the smell of Jaeger fuel. He blinked. He was standing in a hallway in the Shatterdome. Frantically he looked around him and, with a zap of panic, saw Newton bent double on the floor beside him. Dropping to his knees, notably painless inside the Drift, Hermann placed his hands on Newt’s shoulders. He felt solid, but at the same time, less so than Hermann. The sensation was disconcerting.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Newt sobbed, “They’re starting to get in. It’s not working Hermann, I tried but nothing is working, it’s not gonna hold”. A metallic clang bounced down the corridor and Hermann looked up.

The spindly silhouette of a Precursor stood at the end of the corridor, beneath the stuttering blink of a warning beacon. Hermann’s blood ran cold. The creature’s eyes, even from this far away, looked dead, its thin fingers twitching.

“Hermann, please, get out of here,” Newton urged. Hermann’s mind stuttered at he realised. This was his Newt. The real Newt. Not a memory or a projection.

The Precursor began to move. Jittery, like a bug pinned beneath a microscope lens, but with speed.

“I’m going to get you out of here, Newton, I promise you that,” Hermann said urgently. He wished Newt would just look at him. “You must hold on, we’re working on a way to-”

The Precursor was almost upon them. Hermann looked up to see its clicking mandibles, the deadness of its gaze and – Something shoved him in the chest and he felt the connection in his mind snap. The corridor faltered like the reel of a finishing tape, everything freezing and crackling with a static-like energy.

“They’re getting closer,” Newt said and he looked up. If Hermann had any breath, it would have been stolen by the hunted, exhausted look in Newton’s face. Even here, in the maze of his own mind, Newt looked defeated. Hermann tried to reach out to him but, like a carpet being ripped out from under his feet, Hermann felt the Drift slip. His surroundings dropped like a curtain, there was a feeling of pressure and suddenly, Hermann was free again.

Hermann gasped, feeling not unlike a landed fish as he was wrenched from the swell of the Drift. His hands skittered over the arms of the chair, looking around wildly. He reoriented himself, taking in the cell and its irritating lighting, the two-way mirror still staring out soullessly behind him, the Drift tech still hooked up. He ripped off the helmet. His eyes finally landed on Newton.

Newt was hunched in his chair, held up by the restraints at his wrists. His entire body was wracked with heavy sobs. Hermann had seen Newt cry, everyone in the Shatterdome had had bad days during the war, but he had never seen him like this.

“Newton?” Hermann tried. The air felt different, inexplicably. Newt tensed, sobs quieting to a pitiful sniff. He didn’t raise his head.

“I… I can’t…”

“Newton, if that’s you, if you can hear me, listen to my voice, hold on,” Hermann urged.

“I’m not strong enough, I’m not –” Newt’s tone was utterly wrecked, agonised.

“Newton,” Hermann started. Newt looked up sharply and Hermann felt the wind being knocked out of him. There was fear and pain in Newt’s eyes but they were Newt’s eyes, for sure, maybe for the first time in months, and Hermann wasn’t sure how he’d ever not seen the difference. The lively spark, the ever young, vital aspect of his friend that Hermann had missed so very much.

“They're in my head, still. They're in here. H-Hermann,” Newt gasped, “I killed people. _Mako._ It was my fault.”

“It’s alright Newton, just listen to me. Don’t let them in,” Hermann urged, “We are going to fix you.” Tears were spilling down Newton’s face. He gave a sharp, high whimper that made Hermann’s fist clench tightly around the head of his cane.

“K-kill me,” Newton pleaded, “Before they-” Newton suddenly let out a high-pitched scream and doubled over again, howling in pain. There was a loud snap that bounced sickeningly around the metal walls.

Hermann almost stumbled backwards over his chair as he shot to his feet, scrambling back, his leg flaring. He finally got his cane solidly beneath him and felt the bottom drop from his stomach as he took in Newt’s right forearm. It was bent in opposite directions down the middle. Hermann had to choke back his nausea as he realised that Newton had broken his own arm against the restraints.

Newt looked up at Hermann, his hair falling over his eyes raggedly, a twist of a perverse smile on his face. He was sweating, beads of it falling into his eyes but he didn’t even seem to notice, licking his lips in a parody of the way he used to when he was musing over a problem in the lab.

“Oh,” he said brightly, looking down at his arm, as if realising for the first time that it was broken, “Look at what they made me do.”

Hermann turned on his heel and barely even felt the pain in his leg as he all but ran from the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Con-crit is welcome! I struggle with Newt's voice in particular a lot so I appreciate your patience. Thanks for reading :)


	3. A Safe Place

The metal door of the observation room slammed back on itself with a loud clang as Gottlieb stormed through. Jake hurried to close it, blocking out Dr Geiszler’s shouts from the other room. He watched the other doctor vomit hard into a nearby trashcan. He was pale, his hands shaking and skimming around the rim of the can. When he finally looked up, his face was so white that it was almost translucent.

“They- they’re not afraid to hurt Newton,” Gottlieb stammered, picking up his cane again with shaking hands, “They just broke his arm. He’s going to need medical attention.” He looked back at the two-way mirror, at the screaming, struggling man in the chair. He looked away, eyes firmly on the floor.

“Do you think they’ll kill him?” Jake asked. Gottlieb shook his head vehemently, without a moment’s thought. Maybe he was certain, Jake thought, or maybe he was just too frightened to think about the alternative.

“Dr Geiszler was right,” Nate said, filling the long pause that followed. He looked from Gottlieb to Jake, feeling the room. “He’s a danger to himself and others. If killing him is the only way-”

“No, he isn’t right! He’s not in his right mind,” Gottlieb snapped, “And as you damn well know, his name is Newt.” Nate raised his hands a little in surrender.

“He asked you to help him, Hermann,” Nate said.

“No, he asked me to kill him, there’s a big difference,” Gottlieb spat, “We shouldn’t consider it, especially not before we consider the other options.”

“What other options?” Jake asked. Nate looked at him with a disbelieving expression.

“He just broke his own arm. They just broke his arm to stop him talking. So far he hasn’t given us anything about the Anteverse and we’re no closer to getting the doctor back either,” Nate said.

“I don’t know Geiszler well but maybe if we’re considering killing one of our own, we should try some other things first, right?” Jake argued.

Hermann crossed to the two-way glass, his limp more prominent after his run from the room. He stared through it, eyes fixed on Newton. The rangers waited, Hermann’s silence filling the room like a cold rush of water. “The Drift was… unexpected…strange,” Hermann admitted, “But the real Newtwon spoke to me, just now. If he surfaced once, I believe he can do it again, and next time he may be able to give us information about the Anteverse. And more than that, there might be a shot at getting Newton back. I have a hypothesis concerning the Drift that requires testing.”

“They punished him for even a moment of conversation with you,” Nate argued, “Plus, the strain could kill him next time, with the kind of pressure his brain is under. The scans have all shown that his brain is barely holding up as it is.”

Hermann turned to face the rangers, face resolute. He tapped his cane gently on the floor, once, punctuating his point. “Then next time,” he said, “I will take the majority of the neural load. It is often the pilot that controls the right side of the brain that is considered dominant in the Headspace, thereby I might be able to control the communication. Furthermore, it will allow me to…control the rabbit hole, so to speak. I would be in charge if and when we become latched to a memory.” Nate scoffed.

“And doing that with the Precursors could kill you,” he argued.

“Newton is my responsibility,” Hermann said, “The Precursors have been right about one thing – I did fail Newt. I could have stopped this before it ever got this far but I was too wrapped up in my experiments to notice how different he was becoming. I’m not about to let that happen again.”

Jake took in the pale, shaking, but utterly determined man in front of him. He considered the lengths he would have gone for Jake, back when their Drift was still fresh, how the neural handshake first felt. The idea that someone could well and truly know you, more than anyone on the planet, more than yourself sometimes. The kind of connection that only the Drift could create, more than family or love or anything any other human could understand.

“I could help train you,” Jake said, “In taking charge of the Drift. I don’t know how it’ll work with those bastards in his head, but it’s worth a shot.” He looked at Nate, who shrugged with a long suffering sigh.

“I’m just being the voice of reason here,” Nate said, “If they can control him to the degree he showed here, the Precursors could kill Geiszler… Newt, before we even get that far, especially if they realise he’s no longer useful to them. Or if they feel like they’re losing their hold on him; it’s classic military tactics.”

“If we do not act soon, Newt won’t have long left much long left anyway,” Hermann replied. Jake frowned.

“I thought you said they wouldn’t kill him?”

“I don’t believe they’d destroy Newt’s body physically, it would be fruitless for them to do so, but Newt’s consciousness is still in there, fighting,” Hermann explained, “He doesn’t have long before they eradicate that too. Newton’s personality…that is no longer necessary to the Precursor’s plan. We have to find him before they do.”

“Find him? What do you mean, find him?” Nate asked, “He’s right here.”

Hermann looked between the two men and furrowed his brow. His head hurt and he wished he could retreat to his room, wished he could sleep and think about all this tomorrow. Shame rocketed through him as he reminded himself of Newt, sleepless and unable to escape his fate in the adjoining room.

“Follow me,” Hermann said, “And I’ll show you.”  

* * *

 

 

The old lab was dusty and completely dark when Hermann entered, Jake and Nate taking up the rear. Hermann flicked on the lights with his cane, grumbling as the far light continued to flicker, adding to the growing migraine at the base of his skull. The room was almost totally unrecognisable. White sheets covered much of the furniture, from the workbenches to the old sofa, and most of Newt’s samples had been moved to Shao Industries years ago. The place hadn’t been in use since the war, long since closed once Newt had moved on to supposedly greener pastures.

Some of the old features still remained. Thankfully the Kaiju tanks had been moved but Newt’s side of the room was still stained and marred by years of Kaiju research and Hermann’s blackboards were still present. Hermann removed some of the sheets from the workbenches with his cane, unwilling to touch the dust with his hands. It was with some pleasure that he uncovered the old sofa, beaten and worn as it was. He gestured for the rangers to sit. They both looked equally unimpressed by the change in venue. Hermann dug around in his pocket for chalk, feeling satisfied when he came up with some.

“Where would you go if I asked you to imagine your safest space?” Hermann asked to no-one in particular, drawing a circle on the blackboard with a flourish. Behind his back, Jake and Nate shrugged at each other helplessly.

“In the Jaeger yard, probably, with Mako,” Jake humoured, his voice cracking without his consent at his sister’s name. Hermann’s drawing too stuttered at the sound of her name and he cleared his throat. He turned, nodded solemnly at Jake, and pointed at the circle he had drawn.

“If we imagine this to be Newton’s brain,” Hermann said, “A little generous in size, perhaps, but it will suffice to demonstrate. And this is the Precursor influence.” He filled in a large portion of the circle with violent chalk scribbles, the scratching sound making his headache flare. He winced at the violence of the image. “This area,” he flourished at the clear part, “Remains as Newton. Newton’s personality was not dissolved by the Precursors, that much was proved when Newt spoke at Shao Industries. However, in order to protect himself from their attempt to destroy him after he failed their plan, Newton has employed a rather basic, if effective psychological tool.”

With his chalk, Hermann began to draw line after line within the clear space. Jake and Nate leaned in their seats to see the little maze that Hermann was sketching.

“Simply fighting the Precursors is impossible. Such a hive mind is far too powerful to combat with a single identity, but the human brain has an extraordinary capacity for compartmentalization. After a traumatic event, the brain can seal off the trauma, creating identities or scenarios entirely from scratch,” Hermann explained. He tapped at the maze on the blackboard. “Newton has done just that. He has compartmentalised his personality into a maze of memory and thought, a safe space, designed to hide him from the Precursors for as long as possible. My hypothesis is that Newt may be able to escape if the proper aid is provided.” The two rangers stared at the board. The lab was deathly silent as they took in the diagram and, Hermann hoped, his words. Jake spoke first.

“So you’re saying Newt’s gone to his happy place?” he said.

“No,” Hermann argued, “That’s not – that’s an oversimplification, it’s – well, yes. In a way, yes.”

“And you think you can find him, and then what?” Nate intervened.

“My theory is that a powerful enough link can create a passageway through which Newt will be able to escape the Precursors unscathed,” Hermann explained, “If I can find Newton, I hope to pull him out of his confinement. If we can find a way to momentarily expel the Precursors at that time, even for a second, Newt could theoretically resume control. Perhaps permanently.”

“That’s a lot of ifs, Hermann,” Nate pointed out.

“Do you even know where Newt will be, if his head’s such a maze?” Jake asked.

“As a matter of fact, I know exactly where Newt is hiding,” Hermann said confidently, “He tried to tell me during the Drift.”

Hermann held both of his arms aloft, spreading them with a flourish. The other men looked at him with confusion. Hermann sighed. “Here.” More confused blinks.

“During the Drift, I believe Newton tried to show me his hiding place without alerting the Precursors. There was a moment, before I saw Newt, where I saw these.” Hermann walked over to one of the boxes by his old workbench. He’d never moved most of them. Between the closing of the lab and the opening of the new, better funded one, he’d never bothered to move some of the old equipment. He rooted around in the box labelled “FRAGILE”, digging out an old set of test tubes and placing them on the workbench. “A similar set of these were in Newton’s room, and I recognised them instantly. I had them gifted to me by a Jaeger pilot during the war. Newton took a shine to them and used them to store Kaiju blood,” Hermann said.

“I can imagine you weren’t a fan of that,” Nate chuckled.

“No I wasn’t. I let Newt keep them, in fact,” Hermann conceded. He rested his eyes sadly on the tubes wishing, as had been more common in the last few years, that they were filled with Kaiju blood like the old days. That, at least, would mean that Newt was nearby, checking cultures and playing his absurd music.

“Newt is hiding, I believe, in a version of this very lab, within his mental maze,” Hermann said. “Right now he is hidden from the Precursors, but from what I saw during the Drift, they are getting closer. If they find him, they will take control, I believe, for good.”

“So you think Newt’s safe place is a lab… where you spent most of your time arguing, during the most terrifying era of human history?” Nate said slowly, as if addressing a confused child.

Hermann looked around the lab. It was filthy. It still smelled of Kaiju entrails and there was a stain on one part of the wall where Hermann had repeatedly thrown his chalk eraser at Newton’s blasted stereo and missed. The sofa was rumpled from sleeping on it one too many nights, wracked with nightmares, and waking up with a sore neck. Hermann still dreamed about finding Newt too late after the first Kaiju Drift, right there next to where the tanks used to be. The line between their two halves of the lab was still there, for days when Hermann couldn’t even stand to look at his lab partner and his stupid experiments. Drift compatibility was supposedly apparent through sparring, and they’d transformed their lab into their own verbal combat room every day of the war.

“There’s nowhere else either of us would go,” Hermann said at last. Nate looked around the lab and Hermann could see from his face that he didn’t see what he saw. Didn’t see that between the time since Hermann had received the first letter from Newt and discovered he couldn’t stand his physical presence, and losing Newt for another ten years once the war ended, this lab held the best memories Hermann had.

“I must find Newton before the Precursors do,” Hermann urged, “Fortunately, I have an advantage they do not have.”

“Which is?” Jake asked. “Newton and I are Drift compatible, to almost 100%. The Precursors, however, are invading forces. It should be much easier for me to access Newton’s consciousness. I just need time.” Nate looked at Jake with a worried glance, one which made Hermann feel incredibly nervous.

“Time really isn’t something we have an awful lot of,” Nate admitted, “The Precursors are a time bomb, Hermann.”

“Meaning what, exactly?” Hermann said sharply. Nate winced and Hermann almost felt bad for snapping. It was obvious that the responsibilities of the Shatterdome were on his mind, the weight of hundreds of lives, millions if one considered the weight of the world on their shoulders, pressed down on him.

“Newt’s running on borrowed time already,” Nate admitted apologetically, “If we can’t get him out soon… everyone on the base is wanting different things, people are scared of keeping Precursors around the Dome like this… I can’t promise that I can keep him safe for much longer”

Hermann tried not to let the disappointment and irritation show on his face, schooling his expression to one that he’d used at the end of his tether with Newt’s ridiculous Kaiju anatomy rants. He felt himself falter at the thought. Newton hadn’t spoken so excitedly about Kaiju in years.

“Then, in the meantime,” Hermann said, “It looks like we have a lot of work to do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh lord, more characters I can't do the voices of?? Lemme know what you guys think, I always love to hear from you! Have a lovely week everyone :)


	4. Volatile Grief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A chapter that I'm proud of? What be this?? I enjoyed writing this one a lot (I mean, it's still filled with pain and angst, but you know, enjoyed in the loose sense of the word :D)  
> I'll probably be posting a second chapter tomorrow as this one got long and I ended up splitting it. It's kind of a manic few weeks atm for me so I'll have to check how busy things are gonna get! Hope this chapter holds up for ya'll till then :)

They’d been working for hours and Hermann’s head throbbed. A tight, pulsing pain squeezed the base of his skull, strong enough to make his vision spot into white shards whenever he turned his neck. The air in the lab was cold and dusty, which only irritated his chest, and his leg was beginning to twinge with stiffness.

It had been a few days since his Drift with Newt however, and that thought made Hermann push on, squinting against the dim lighting in an effort to quell his headache. The more time it took to complete Jake’s Drift training, the more time Newt was forced to spend along with those beasts in his head. At this point, with the atmosphere in the Shatterdome being as fragile as its name, and worsening every day, every second was a dangerous delay.

Jake had judged it too dangerous to try and Drift with Newt as any sort of practice, and Hermann had the distinct impression that the Precursors were enjoying the tense, rattled mood in the Dome, which had left them with a problem. Without another compatible Drift partner, and no real time to find another, teaching Hermann how to establish Drift control was proving tricky. The overly theoretical approach was evidently grating on Jake’s practical nerves, and the simulations were making Hermann’s head spin with frustration. And, as many a long day in the lab could be attested to, frustration did not make a gentle individual out of Hermann.

“This is ridiculous,” Hermann spat, pushing his chair away from the screen with force. He grabbed his cane, hoisting himself up into a flurry of pacing. Anxiety bubbled in his chest, failure gnawing at the back of his mind and he pushed the feelings down as far as he could. This wasn’t helping Newt, he knew that, but he at least needed a damned break from that machine. He’d been sat at the makeshift computer station since morning and he was _done_.

Jake sighed, wiping a hand across his face. Guiltily, Hermann noted how tired he looked and stopped his pacing, shoulders sagging.

“I’m sorry Jake,” Hermann said, “Failure has never been my strong suit. Particularly not when it matters so much.” Jake shrugged, his expression light and non-judgemental.

“Don’t worry about it, you’re doing pretty good. It’s not an exact science,” he admitted. Hermann had to agree with that. Not only had the rough simulation, a generic replication of an imagined Drift scenario, been drafted in a matter of just a few hours, but even the logic of Drift mechanics seemed shaky at best to Hermann. The hard facts of Drift technology were easy, as understandable to Hermann as the turn of day and night, but the inside of the Drift baffled him. It was emotional, unstable and, if he was honest, more Newt’s kind of thing than his. The thought wasn’t a comforting one.

“I’m dreadful,” Hermann argued, “And don’t tell me I’m not. If I can’t establish control in a generic Drift, what chance do I stand with the Precursors?”

Jake raised an eyebrow at that. With a look that reminded Hermann all too much of Stacker Pentecost, Jake switched off the monitor, the simulation collapsing into darkness with a clipped chime.

“You’re not trying to Drift with the Precursors though, you’re Drifting with Newt,” Jake reminded him, “You’re having to do what every pilot isn’t meant to do, mate – chase the rabbit. You gotta find Newt and follow him, dodge right past the Precursors right? Nobody’s meant to go into memory space like that.”

“And yet, here I am,” Hermann muttered.

“Hey, you’re the one who said Newt’s in memory space, yeah? So that’s where you need to get to. Listen, ignore the simulation, okay? I just figured it’d help you learn, you know, with it being sciencey and everything.”

“Sciencey is hardly a word,” Hermann interjected and Jake rolled his eyes.

“Mate, I’m tryna give you advice here,” Jake said. Hermann clasped his lips together, nodding for him to continue. “Honestly, Newt’s head is gonna be totally different to the simulation anyway. Even without all that shit in his brain from the Precursors, all our minds are different, yeah? All you’ve got to do is feel it, okay? You got to find what makes Newt who he is, and just… follow it down.”

Hermann wanted to argue. He wanted to argue, and yell, and maybe even throw something because _that wasn’t going to work_. Not for the first time since Newt had been captured, he wished that it was Newt in this situation. Newt would know what to do. More than that, Newt would be excited to Drift with Hermann again, no doubt, because he was ridiculous like that. _And isn’t that the whole problem in the first place?_ Hermann’s mind supplied the unhelpful thought without prompting, and he hated himself for it.

Self-pity, however, wasn’t going to help anyone and, as much as Hermann wished it wasn’t so, he was the only one who could help his friend right now.

“I don’t know how to find that,” Hermann admitted, “He’s maddening. And completely illogical, his mind is all over the place even without the Precursors.” It was a little unfair, he knew that, but lashing out at Newt when he was angry was about as normal a reaction as he ever had, and he almost allowed himself to imagine the indignant protest that Newt would have launched from the other side of the lab if he was here.

“If that’s what you have to use to find him, then use that,” Jake offered, “That’s the whole point of compatibility. It’s not just about being buddies or anything, it’s about the volatile bit that makes you get mad wi’ each other too. Me and Nate argue all the time but most Drift partners do. If they don’t drive you up the wall sometimes, they’re not right. It’s kinda like family.”

“You’re suggesting I find Newt by exploiting volatile memories?”

Jake scoffed a laugh at that, and Hermann wondered what was so funny until Jake spun a hand around to gesture the lab.

“He chose this place as a hiding place, I think it’s safe to say he’s pretty in tune with his volatile side,” Jake smirked, “’Sides, memories are about feeling; the stronger the feeling, the stronger the memory space and the more you can follow it in. Volatile is the good and bad stuff, not just the things that explode.”

Hermann considered that thought. He wanted so badly for there to be an easy fix, a testable and infallible way of accessing Newt’s mental maze without having to emote quite so much, without having to feel around blindly in the dark for the sharp edges of Newton’s mind. Then again, finding the location of his hiding place hadn’t been so difficult on their last Drift, even if Hermann hadn’t been able to get to it, because Newt had helped him. Newt, who was trapped, and terrified of the baying dogs at the doors of his mind, the skeletal figures that staggered through the halls of his maze looking for him. Despite the fear that every passing second allowed them nearer to him, Newt had helped Hermann. It was the kind of reckless compassion that Hermann had always secretly, silently appreciated about Newt. The kind of dangerous, and endangered, caring that made Hermann feel somewhat better about entering his mind again in search of him.

Jake moved past Hermann to perch himself on Newt’s old table, heaving a sigh. He looked more like his father every day, Hermann noted. Every day more tired, more heavy with the weight of the clamours of people demanding to be saved. Heavier with loss.

“How… how are you?” Hermann found himself asking. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t asked before, after the battle in Japan, after Newt had been brought in. There hadn’t really seemed a moment for it. Hermann felt a little ashamed of himself. Stacker had always seemed so strong and so sure that Hermann had never thought to ask about his wellbeing, it almost spoke for itself, but Jake was different. He had more smile lines, more playfulness that reminded Hermann painfully of Mako when she was younger.

“I’m alright,” Jake said lightly. Hermann raised an eyebrow at that and limped forwards, seating himself on a stool beside him. The cold really was doing dreadful things to his leg. Catching sight of Hermann’s disbelieving look, Jake gave a half-hearted shrug.

“Well, about as alright as you,” Jake admitted and then, after a pause, “They took someone from us both, huh?” He looked lost, suddenly, his eyes losing focus for an instant as if he had forgotten where he was, before he caught himself.

“I mean, not that Newt’s gone or nothing. Shit, sorry mate, I didn’t mean-”

“It’s quite alright Jake,” Hermann said softly. He looked up at the young man and allowed himself a soft smile. He could imagine how proud Stacker Pentecost would be looking down on Jake, if only Hermann believed in such things.

“Nah, I wasn’t thinking. I was… thinking of Mako, you know?” Jake continued. Hermann nodded. He’d been doing a lot of thinking about Mako lately too. The senselessness of it, the confusion. One moment there was a light in the world and the next it was gone.

“You’re right,” Hermann said, “They did take things from us both.” He lapsed into silence, wishing that he knew the right thing to say.

“Mako was a dear friend of mine,” Hermann said at last, “Your sister was quite extraordinary.”

“Yeah, she was.” Jake’s voice was soft, his head bowed. Hermann looked away, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. As much as it hurt Hermann’s chest to think about Mako, as much as the grief felt like a pit in his stomach, he couldn’t imagine Jake’s pain. And yet Hermann grieved for Newton too, Newt who…

“I imagine you must hate Newton,” Hermann said softly, “I commend your dedication to the cause in helping him. I know it must be difficult.” He felt as if had defended Newton to almost everyone on the base by now, every spiteful comment and cruel word against him making Hermann flare up angrily, but it felt cheap to do so now. Jake’s sister was dead, and whether Newt was consciously to blame or not, it was his actions that had led to her death. The thought opened up a chasm in Hermann that he wasn’t sure he could ever close.

Jake was silent for a very long time, the stillness morphing into tension. Hermann didn’t really expect an answer. “I really don’t know what to think, if I’m honest. It’s… been mad… not really touching the ground, not quite letting it hit me,” Jake finally said, “In a way I want to be the better man, it wasn’t Geiszler’s fault. It’s not a duty, I really do wanna help him. There’s no sense in you suffering too, y’know? I’m sick of people having to lose the people they care about. But yeah… the other part of me… part of me would be happy to let him rot in there.”

Hermann flinched at the steel edge to Jake’s tone and Jake ducked his head, apologetic. “I’m sorry, I know he’s a good friend of yours. It’s just hard… with Mako, you know?”

Hermann nodded. “I know this won’t make it feel any better, but Newton loved her very much,” Hermann said quietly. He could feel grief welling up in his chest and the cold burn of it lodged painfully into his heart. The grief for Mako, for who Newt had been before this, for the fact that Hermann couldn’t remember the last time he spoke to his real best friend, for the smiles of the people he loved that he might never see again.

“Newt loved looking after her when she was a child. They would play hide and seek in the flight area and they’d both get a scalding.” Hermann gave a wet laugh and that seemed to be it. Tears had begun to fall, unbidden, a lump forming in his throat. It was the first time he’d cried in front of anyone since the war, and although he’d cried himself awake during nightmares in recent years, the release felt somewhat welcome. The sudden, overwhelming collapse of fear and adrenaline after the long fighting was like steam being blown from a whistle.

He remembered Stacker scolding Mako after interrupting her game of hide and seek by dangerous Jaeger parts and Hermann had similarly scolded Newt in front of everyone for encouraging it. Newton had teasingly answered “yes dad” to every question for a week after that.

“Newt painted little kaijus on her arms one time, and asked me to do one,” Hermann chuckled, “It was a disaster, it looked terrible.” Jake laughed at that too and Hermann looked up to see tears in his eyes too, the ranger’s expression broken but smiling.

“He really loved your sister,” Hermann said. He paused, felt the lump in his throat choke him and for a second he felt a phantom hand wrapped around his windpipe. “I don’t know if he’s ever going to want to come back to that. The guilt will kill him,” Hermann whispered. He reached up to his collar, touching the starched fabric, feeling the bruises beneath it sing on his skin.

He jumped when he felt a hand on his shoulder. The comforting smile on Jake’s face, even in the face of his own pain, reminded Hermann that the young man had just as much of Mako in him as he had of his father.

“We’re going to get Newt back,” Jake promised, “Because if Mako loved him too, she’d never let him blame himself, she was good like that.”

“Yes, yes she was,” Hermann agreed.

“Besides, if we get Newt back on our side, we might have a shot at those bastards who are really to blame,” Jake said, and the hardness in his voice was all Pentecost, resolute and firm as war drums. Hermann wouldn’t want to be the Precursors if Jake really did make it through to the Anteverse. Then again, if they indeed made it through, Hermann wanted to make sure the Precursors knew his name too. Jake wasn’t the only one with a score to settle.

“You ready to put that training to some use?” Jake said. Hermann wished he knew the Pentecost secret to motivation because when he looked back to the younger man, Hermann felt a rush of certainty flood through him.

“As I’ll ever be,” Hermann nodded. Jake grinned and hopped down and, for the most fleeting of moments, Hermann had the urge to put his hand out in a fist. _We’ll own this thing for sure_ , Hermann’s mind supplied.

When Newt was out of this whole mess, Hermann couldn’t wait to yell at him for instilling that particular habit in him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews, comments and con-crit are wonderful, I love to hear from you guys! And thanks for sticking with the fic :)


	5. Conversations with/without a friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm so dreadfully sorry that this is so late – it’s an extra two unscheduled chapters technically but still no excuse for it being late! I had a lot of work to do before I could get this edited. It ended up being longer than I expected so I split it into two, and normally I'd keep the second one to post next week but they kinda just read well together so I thought why not just post em together? Please lemme know what you think of them, I didn't want the Drifting to feel too repetitive but Newt needed more than just the one Drift to fix him...

The door to the interrogation room hissed open and closed once more, and Hermann’s confidence closed up like the dying of a flower. He’d been steadying himself for this on the hurried, stiff walk from the laboratory, but Hermann had been prepared to see the Newton he had observed several days ago, not _this_.

The smell hit Hermann first. It was a rank, overpowering odour that made him stop in the doorway, holding a sleeve to his nose. The room smelled of sweat, urine and blood, all of it stagnating in the immovable air. From his restrained position, Newton looked up slowly and raised an eyebrow.

“Jeez, what, do I smell that bad?” His voice was light but weak and Hermann dropped his arm in reflexive shame, entering the room fully and sitting in the chair across from Newt.

“They have to uncuff me to go to the bathroom,” Newt giggled, verging on the hysterical, “But I don’t think they like me very much. He got so scared that he wet himself, he hasn’t done that during the day before. It’s so pathetic.” The last admission was all Precursor, malicious in its design to hurt, but Hermann barely heard it. Instead he was looking over Newt’s body. Or at least, what was left of it. If Hermann ever found out the names of the men guarding Newt, he wouldn’t rest until they never worked again.

Newt had lost so much weight in the past week or so that the restraints had evidently been modified to encircle his now thinner limbs, making an exception for the cast on his right arm. Hermann vaguely wondered who had set it. If they’d been gentle, or if they’d hated Newton as much as everyone else on the base did right now. The guards were evidently out to punish Newt for the near end of the world, and Hermann was itching to have a long talk with Nate about the lack of professionalism within the Shatterdome.

He was also planning a conversation regarding how much Newt had been fed and, if he was being fed enough, what they were giving him. The usual pudge of his stomach was entirely gone and his face, now covered with a light layer of stubble, was gaunt. His clothes hung off him and, Hermann now noticed, the garments were completely filthy. His shirt looked to have vomit stains on it, explaining partially some of the smell, and his trousers too looked stained and uncomfortable. Even Newt’s hair, usually carelessly, and annoyingly, styled, was limp and greasy.

Hermann couldn’t do this. He didn’t care if Newt had damn well near caused the end of the world, this was barbaric. Nobody, _nobody_ , deserved this. Hermann tried his best not to summon up thoughts of Newton’s incessant griping whenever his one of his favourite shirt had happened to be stained with remains in the lab, or his ridiculous habit of messing with his hair in the glass reflection of the Kaiju tanks. How the hell had this been allowed to happen? How was Newt supposed to come to himself when he didn’t even _look_ like himself?

Shaking, Hermann spun on his heel and marched away. He surprised himself by muttering “excuse me” as if the Precursors could honestly care about manners.

* * *

 

 

He waited until the door to the interrogation room was firmly closed behind him and the soundproofing was total before Hermann looked up at the men in the observation room. Nate and Jake had the decency to look uncomfortable, but the guard in the corner was expressionless, refusing to even catch Hermann’s eye.

“I want him to leave,” Hermann said quietly, calmly. He didn’t feel calm. He felt like tearing every one of the sound recorders in that room out of their place and broadcasting to the entire Shatterdome _at what point did we forget to be human beings?_ Hermann supposed the answer was when the most human man he knew became a Precursor puppet.

“Hermann-” Nate began gently.

“I want him out!” Hermann barked. He noted with some satisfaction that the guard jumped at that. He let himself twist a smile as Nate nodded, watching the guard leave.

“What the hell have you done to him?” Hermann demanded, as soon as the man had left, “Are you insane?”

“It’s not what it looks like,” Nate argued.

“Oh, then by all means, do explain! Because what that looks like to me is torture, plain and simple,” Hermann snapped.

“I know, I know it looks bad.”

“Bad? Bad doesn’t begin to cover-”

“Doctor Gottlieb!” Nate interrupted loudly, “I’m not saying we’re not to blame, okay? You know the feeling on the base, I’ve already had to remand two guys.”

“I want their names,” Hermann spat, before he could stop himself. Nate sighed. Behind him, Jake cracked a grin, before checking himself back into a neutral expression. Hermann was glad to see that at least someone was on his side.

“I dealt with them, you’re not the only one who wants to keep Newton safe,” Nate said, “But it’s not entirely our fault. He’s not eating, he barely sleeps. His night terrors are so bad that he vomits or… listen, either the Precursors are losing interest in him or they’re trying to get us to let our guard down. We’re not the only ones putting pressure on him.”

“We shouldn’t be putting pressure on him at all!” Hermann argued. He knew that was reductive; Newton was still a Level 1 threat after all. “I don’t agree with keeping him in this state. I want that to be very clearly understood.” Nate nodded solemnly.

“The quicker we can get Newt out of there, the better,” Nate said, “I don’t like seeing him like this either.” Against his will, Hermann’s anger died a little, simmering into a quieter, tighter ball at the pit of his stomach. Jake jerked his chin up in acknowledgement, his blasé smile back in place.

“Yeah well, that ought to be soon,” Jake said, “One more Drift and he’ll be out, right Hermann?”

Hermann wished he could reclaim some of the confidence he felt earlier, rather than simply feeling tired and vaguely nauseous. Regardless, he nodded silently and headed back to finish what he’d barely been able to start.

* * *

 

 

Newt looked up immediately when Hermann re-entered. He looked more composed now, eerily so considering his state, and he grinned at Hermann.

“Hey, you’re back! Dude, I was worried you weren’t gonna see me again, like, I know I’m kind of gross right now but it’s not like it’s worse than the lab right? That time I spilled Kaiju fluid down the stairs from the delivery room and it got under the door?” Hermann made his way back to his chair, easing himself down gently. The smell was just as difficult to get used to this time as before.

“I vacated the lab for a week, if I remember correctly,” Hermann replied.

“Such an overreaction, man, it was gone in a day!” Newt argued, “Besides, at least this smell is all human.” He looked sad for the slightest of moments, hardly more than a micro expression and Hermann caught the shame and humiliation in Newt’s eyes before it was gone again. It reminded Hermann with a jolt that he wasn’t speaking to Newt, rather to the thing keeping him hostage.

“I’m sorry,” Newt said suddenly. He nodded at Hermann, his eyes indicating his neck and Hermann gripped his cane to avoid moving his fingers to touch the bruises there. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” Newton said. The apology was empty, devoid of any of the guilty impetus with which Newt had spoken to Hermann at Shao Industries.

“Am I speaking to the Precursors or to Newt right now?” Hermann asked coldly. Newt gave him a sad look.

“Take your pick, dude,” he said flippantly.

“The Precursors then, I gather,” Hermann said. Newt grinned, assuring Hermann without doubt that there was no trace of Newt here. Good days, bad days, Hermann tried telling himself. His leg ached painfully.

“You’re not as stupid as those cardigans make you look, Hermie,” Newt said playfully. The nickname made Hermann’s stomach churn.

“Yes, well, you never did like my cardigans Newton,” Hermann said, addressing his friend and then the Precursors, “I take it you learned some things during the Drift the other day?” He pulled the cart with the pons device to him. With some vague sense of satisfaction, that knocked the smug look from Not-Newt’s face. Instead he licked his lips, eyes flicking between the machine and Hermann.

“If you try to do that again,” Newt warned, and suddenly his voice turned desperate and scared “I’ll kill myself Hermann, I swear man, this is too much. It’s too much, I can’t. Please.” Hermann steeled himself and didn’t falter.

“Don’t try to use him against me,” Hermann said sharply, “It won’t work. I know Newton and he’s more of a fighter than he gives himself credit for, so don’t you dare try to make him seem weak.” He hadn’t meant to get so angry so fast, in the way that he only ever did with Newton, and he hadn’t meant to give so much away. Newt’s grin split wider.

“You won’t kill him because you need him,” Hermann reasoned, “He’s the only way you can get into this world.”

Newt leaned forwards, slowly, silently in his chair.

“Not if we infect you too,” The Precursors growled.

There was a sound behind the two-way glass and Hermann jumped, turning to look. He didn’t imagine the conversation following this one would be any more pleasant. He looked back at Newt who was chuckling, leaning back again in his seat. Bones popped in his spine from disuse, and Hermann winced. They hadn’t even let Newt stretch and Newt, the old Newt, the real Newt, hated being kept still.

“You’re so easy Hermann, no wonder this mindless meatsack liked toying with you so much,” Not-Newt gloated.

“If you’re going to insult him, and me, then we might as well start,” Hermann said, reaching for the headsets.

“What do you hope to get with this, man?” The Precursors said, their voice thick with mockery, “That he’ll be strong enough to break free? Even if he is, he’s not brave enough to tell you about us, he knows we can make him suffer.” Hermann looked Newt in the eyes. They were swollen with lack of sleep, the uncomfortable position and stress obviously keeping Newt awake for hours even when he was himself. The Precursors met his gaze stare for stare.

“I hope,” Hermann said, “to speak to my friend.”

He didn’t give them the satisfaction of more than that before he started the Drift.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews, comments and con-crit welcome as always and thanks v. much to my regular readers for being so lovely!


	6. The Exit Door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning, this chapter is LONG. I got carried away with Newt’s mind maze, it was SO fun to write! I feel like I may have been overly self-indulgent with this chapter so, if that is the case, thank you for your patience.

****The screech of the Precursor mind was louder than last time, hitting Hermann with more ferocity. For a moment he wasn’t sure if he could keep his hold on the Drift at all, the feeling of connection sliding and tilting on an invisible axislike losing control of a car wheel. It was an immediately terrifying feeling, of being off-kilter with the instinctive, primal knowledge of predators being so very close. Hermann’s consciousness struggled and kicked, drowning in the rush of sensation. He had to focus, had to get beneath – deeper into Newton’s consciousness. He pushed harder at the sharp, violent sting of Precursor thought surrounding him.

With an almost painfully sudden cessation of sound and feeling, he was free. The Precursors were gone and, Hermann noted with a lump in his throat, so was everything else. His surroundings were entirely blacked out, so completely devoid of content and time that it was nothing but black void as far as his eyes could see. He was standing, or at least, the image of himself he had within the Drift was, but he couldn’t feel ground beneath him. He wasn’t floating, per say, but neither was he on solid ground.

Panic clutched at his chest. Had the Drift failed? Had he gone too far? Perhaps he’d skittered entirely out of the realm of thought, dropped the connection and drifted into empty consciousness. He forced himself to calm down; he mustn’t panic. It was impossible for any of that to happen… wasn’t it?

A loud screech above him made him jump and he snapped his head up to look. His mouth dropped open.

Far above him, shimmering and contorting like the surface of water, was the Anteverse. Electric blue and white lightning flickered the writhing, gnashing bodies of Kaiju into visibility through an almost mirror-like division in the blackness. From where Hermann stood, it was like looking through a glass floor, straight up into horrorscape of the other world. The creatures seemed far away, untouchable through the division, but it made them feel no less threatening, nor any less real.

“Good God, Newton,” Hermann whispered, “What on Earth have you built?” Whether the Precursors had brought some of home with them into Newt’s mind, whether it was Newt’s overactive imagination working to the extreme or it was some kind of defence, Hermann didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. He wanted to get out of here.

“Hermann?”

Hermann froze. The voice drifted eerily through the darkness, coming from far away. He turned blindly towards it and began to walk, his cane still somehow supporting his weight in the empty blackness.

“Hermann?”

That wasn’t Newt’s voice.

Nor was the silhouette, clearly visible and almost shining in the dark, just ahead. The trim, white clothes, the neat black hair…

“Mako?” Hermann’s voice failed him at the same time his legs did and he almost collapsed, his cane only just supporting him. He could only see her back but it was her. _But you died_ , Hermann thought. He shook himself. This wasn’t real, none of this was. This was just Newton’s mind. _What are you doing here?_ Hermann wanted to ask.

“Mako?” He was right behind her but she didn’t turn. She didn’t seem to hear him. He moved to her side in the darkness, and he could see her profile, her face impassive and perfect as it ever was. It was only now that Hermann noted the stillness about her. Her chest didn’t lift, her hair didn’t flutter with the breaths that would have stirred it. She was as still as the grave.

“Mako…” Hermann whispered sadly.

She turned.

Hermann couldn’t help the way he staggered back as she looked at him, the side of her face that hadn’t been facing him covered in swirling, writhing tattoos. Kaiju tattoos, but they didn’t look like the ones that Newt had. Rather, they looked childlike and simple, more like… Hermann caught sight of the one he had drawn years ago, on Mako’s arm. It looked distorted, sinister, in the dark.

“It’s not his fault,” Mako said gently, “And it is not yours, either, Hermann.”

Hermann felt his left foot slip into nothingness and he gasped, feeling what had seemed like ground disappear behind him. He righted himself, stepping forwards and Mako disappeared suddenly. He wanted to call out to her, but then there was light, and Hermann squinted, momentarily blinded. Light, sound, solid ground. The memory of a warm, light breeze.

He was atop a building. Atop… the very same building Newton had been stood upon during the Kaiju attack in Japan, commemorated and memorized to the last detail in Newt’s memories. The edge of the roof was too close behind him for comfort, lacking any of the safety guardrails or walls that Hermann was sure had been on the original building, and Hermann shuffled forwards. He turned, looking out over the city. Or what was left of it.

The buildings were shattered, literally. It was as if a city of glass had been ground into powder, shards of metal and mirrors reflecting the glint of the sun in every direction. It was a wasteland, crystalline and almost beautiful, the charred earth lost beneath the mirrored dust that caught on the morning air. It was perversely extraordinary.

 _Is this what they showed you?_ Hermann didn’t dare ask the question aloud, in case he got an answer. He didn’t want to know what the end of the world had looked like for Newt as he stood on that rooftop, didn’t want to know if Newt knew how expendable he would have been if the Precursor’s plan had worked. He really didn’t want to know if Newt would have been content with this being the last thing he ever saw.

The landscape turned an ugly shade in Hermann’s mind at that thought and he sniffed, looking around with guarded caution. Newt’s mind was more shattered and complicated than he could possibly have anticipated, but that wasn’t going to stop him. He’d spent years deciphering that man’s inane conversation in the lab, he wasn’t about to let Newt’s mind get the better of him now, either. He needed to find a way out of this place.

Casting about, he noticed a trapdoor on the floor a few paces from him. A glowing green “EXIT” sign, the kind one saw above fire doors, was placed above it.

“Yes, very funny Newton,” Hermann said, more to himself. He risked one last glance at the cold stretch of shimmering land beneath him. He was sure that he could see the mangled metal skeletons of Jaegers in the far distance. With a shudder, Hermann hurried to get inside.

The trapdoor led down a flight of stairs that, in the real world, Hermann would not have appreciated. Nor would he have appreciated the many, many corridors that followed. It was indeed a maze, often with doors and entrances to empty Shatterdome rooms or classrooms from Newt’s childhood. Hermann found some of the doors locked, including one that he was sure was Newt’s childhood bedroom, if he remembered their first Drift correctly. There were no other memories or people to be found, only empty rooms and empty halls. The emptiness worried Hermann. Newt’s mind seemed barren, carefully constructed to be as warren-like and twisted as possible. The Precursors, at least, were as lost as Hermann. He had yet to observe one stalking the halls, and it caused him to wonder just how big this maze was. Already it felt like he’d been walking for far longer than any Drift should last.

“Newton,” Hermann said aloud, his voice echoing down the long corridor, “Newt, you must listen to me. It’s Hermann. I have… engaged in another Drift with you, I need your help. I must find you, which means you must trust me to find you. It is me, and I am here to help you.” So far Hermann hadn’t heard from Newt, hadn’t seen a sign of him anywhere, but he was almost certain that the trapdoor had been a concession from his friend. He didn’t blame Newt for being cautious, he had no idea what access the Precursors had to Newt’s memories or what form they could take. For all Hermann knew, Newt could very well believe this all to be a cruel Precursor trick.

There was only one way to disprove that particular hypothesis.

“I know you’re somewhere around here, so you might as well just give up. You were never as good at hide and seek as you thought you were,” Hermann said, trying to keep his voice light and as vaguely condescending as possible. He didn’t feel like taunting Newton right now, for the first time ever perhaps, but if Newton was to believe it was him, Hermann had to remember Jake’s advice. _Find what makes Newt, Newt._ The most volatile, most maddening, most illogical memories Hermann had of Newt was their most bitter arguments, but he also remembered how much better those had made the good times feel. People tended to believe that his relationship with Newt was a pain because of their arguments, and at times it was, but in honesty, Hermann’s best memories with Newt were not in spite of their bickering, but because of it. The fact that they could disagree so violently at times only made it all the more important when they liked each other’s company anyway.

“I got your clue. It was very clever, if I must say, but you will remember that you did _steal_ those test tubes. Emotional manipulation was the only reason you got to keep them and that was only because you put your filthy experiments in them. If you remember, that’s precisely why we made the deal about labelling your lab equipment and mine in the first place. Now, I don’t want to argue about it, but-”

Hermann almost laughed when he rounded the next corner. There was another immediate corner, but situated in an entirely illogical position, was a large escape door. “EXIT” was scrawled across it in chalk.

“I believe I win this round, then,” Hermann chuckled. He walked forwards and was just about to place his hand on the opening lever when a dim light caught his eye. Frowning, he slowly retreated his hand, casting a wary glance over the door.

Above him was another exit light. This one read “Disabled Access”, pointing to a set of darkened stairs. They looked less enticing than the door had, but Hermann wasn’t fooled. Newt was never cautionary in real life, but with the Precursors in his mind, there was no reason for that to remain the same. Hermann worked his jaw in thought, moving his gaze from the door to the stairs and back. The door suddenly seemed out of place, suspicious. The “EXIT” written across it seemed faint and powdery.

He made sure not to say it out loud, but he sometimes had to give his lab partner more credit.

The stairs led to another door and even in the gloom Hermann recognised it. His breath caught and, without hesitation, he pushed it open.

Their lab was exactly how Hermann remembered it during the war. The Kaiju tanks, now emptied however, threw their glow across the work benches and the smell of chalk combated the tangy, grotesque smell of Kaiju blood from the far side of the room. Despite the hallways having been totally empty, the ghostly sound of chatter floated through the door behind Hermann as he closed it, mingling with the hum of generators and the low sound of music from a radio on Newt’s work desk.

And there, leaning at his desk, looking for all the world like he’d seen the sun for the first time, was Newton. Hermann’s Newton, who wasn’t as skinny as the one that was bound in the real world, Newton whose smile was so wide and so plainly overjoyed that it stole Hermann’s breath for a moment.

Newt laughed, and the sound was so, _so_ good that Hermann felt himself grin too.

“Dude, rocket thrusters?” Newt said, “I am not kidding Hermann, that’s the best thing you’ve ever said and I couldn’t even tell you!” Hermann didn’t want to talk about Kaiju blood rocket thrusters. He didn’t want to look at the way Newt’s smile faltered as he tried to smooth a joke over the way his eyes grew wet and shiny. Instead, he crossed the distance between them in a matter of seconds and pulled Newt into a hug.

Newt gave a surprised “oh” and went still, but then Hermann felt Newt’s arm wrap around his lower back, burrowing his face into Hermann’s shoulder.

“I have missed you, Newton,” Hermann said sincerely. Newt shook in his arms. It was only a matter of moments before Hermann felt wetness seep into his jacket, the vivid sensation of Drift memory mingling with Newt’s constructed mind-space to give a painfully real sensation. Newt was crying, his whole body shaking hard.

“You can have your test tubes back,” Newt gasped between tears, “I’m not gonna be using them, man.” Hermann had to laugh at that and he tucked his chin over Newton’s head for a brief second, allowing relief to wash over him. The Newton Geiszler that Hermann knew was still here. Fighting and joking and breaking and risking as always, but making something incredible from what little he had nonetheless.

Hermann pulled back, placing his hands on Newt’s shoulders. Newt’s eyes were red and he looked away, using the sleeve of his leather jacket to wipe snot from his nose before he looked back to Hermann.

“You’d think I could control my own snot with this being my brain, huh?” he joked, but his eyes no longer held the fragile joy that they had a moment ago. He looked simply fragile, guilt and fear and a sharp, hunted look in his eyes.

“I’m going to get you out of here,” Hermann said firmly, “I don’t know how long we have, but I need your help in order to-”

“Hermann, no.”

“Listen to me Newton-”

“You listen, it’s not going to work!”

“If you just-”

“I’m not strong enough-”

Hermann couldn’t control himself. It was like an automatic response, to keep bickering until neither one of them could hear the other, even when Hermann knew it wouldn’t do any good. He couldn’t honestly say he hadn’t missed it, however.

“Newton!” Hermann shouted. Newt flinched, going instantly silent. Hermann almost felt bad for yelling, even though Newt had never reacted like that before. Newt’s gaze flicked to the lab door and back to Hermann quickly. Hermann lowered his voice.

“I know you do not believe you are strong enough,” he held up a hand when Newt tried to interrupt, “And perhaps that is true, but that is with a single mind, alone. No Jaeger can operate alone – we must share the neural load.”

Newt shook his head. He was getting agitated, his breathing picking up. Hermann was sure a section of the laboratory wall flickered in and out of visibility for a split second.

“No, Hermann, it’s not safe, they’re nearly here. I can feel them, I know where they are. Dude, I just… jeez Hermann, I just wanted to say goodbye.” Newt sounded crushed, but Hermann was sure he couldn’t possibly feel as bad as the collapse in Hermann’s chest did when he heard Newt’s quiet admission. He allowed anger, reflexive and defensive, to flare in his throat.

“Don’t you _dare_ say that after everything I’ve done to get here Newton Geiszler,” Hermann scolded. The petulant, selfish spark of resentment felt hollow and false but it got Newt’s attention and Hermann was satisfied to see a defiant spark light in his eyes. “A part of you has fought them this far Newton, to be hidden here like this,” Hermann reasoned, “Either they find you soon or you at least try this plan and help me. Which will it be?”

Newt looked at him and Hermann swore there was something akin to wonder in his expression, before he covered it with a wry chuckle. “Do I really have a choice?” he said, his truly awful fake British accent coming out to tease Hermann once more. It made warmth bloom in Hermann’s chest to hear it. “’Sides,” Newt said, “You know I’ve always got to help you anyways, right? You’d never-”

Newt was cut off when something slammed loudly into the lab door, making them both jump. Hermann dropped his cane in shock and when he looked back to Newt again, he was surprised to see that Newt was backing up quickly, his body shaking violently once more. His wide eyes were fixed on the door.

“They’re here,” Newt whispered, and Hermann wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself or not, “Hermann, you gotta go.”

“Newton, listen to me. _Listen to me,_ ” Hermann insisted. He sounded far calmer than he felt.  

Newt’s attention flicked back to him for the barest of instants.

“I need you to fight. I will be here to share the strain, I promise you, but I cannot fight for you, only with you. We can beat them,” Hermann said, “As we did before. I have a plan Newton, you simply have to trust me.”

“I’m not… I’m not worth it Hermann-”

“Don’t-”

“They’re pissed. They’ll kill me, they’ll kill you-”

“Do you or do you not trust me?” Hermann asked firmly. There was another slam on the door and Newt let out an involuntary cry at that. Hermann had never seen him this afraid. Hermann put his fist out resolutely, stepping towards Newton, his leg dragging without his cane.

Newt stared at him. Hermann wished he knew what Newt was calculating in his head, wished he didn’t look so afraid and so resigned.

“I need you to help me, Newt,” Hermann urged, “I won’t leave you here. I’m taking you home, back to our real lab. I promise.” The hammering at the door was worryingly loud now but Hermann didn’t hear it over the pounding in his ears as Newt wrapped a hand around Hermann’s fist.

“Let’s own this thing,” Newt said, voice shaking. Hermann grinned just as shakily.

“My plan is untested, but it is our best chance,” Hermann clarified and Newt nodded.

“Wouldn’t be us if it wasn’t kinda insane, huh?” Newt said, but his attention was back on the door.

“I must disconnect the Drift, just for a moment,” Hermann admitted and Newt looked at him, eyes wide in terror.

“Wait, what?”

“If we are to tip the balance of power in our favour, your neural pathways must be reset. Once back online, we will work together to place you in charge once more, for good,” Hermann explained. He would have been impressed at how confident he sounded, if not for the fact that the pounding on the door had suddenly stopped. He turned to join Newt in looking warily at the exit. The silence was even more terrifying than the sound. Even the radio had ceased to play.

“I’m not going to like this plan, am I?” Newt asked.

“Rather not, no,” Hermann admitted. He placed a hand on Newt’s shoulder and look him in the eye. “But once I open the Drift again, fight. With everything you have.” Newt nodded.

The door to the lab, which had previously been locked tight, strained suddenly, bowing under a weight and then, with a click of the latch, swung slowly open. The darkness on the other side was all consuming.

The Precursor stepped through silently.

“Goodbye Hermann,” Newt whispered, "Thanks... for trying. I mean it, dude." Hermann squeezed his shoulder.

“Fight, Newton,” Hermann said, “I shall fight with you.”

His heart broke at the whimper Newt let out when Hermann disconnected the Drift, and the lab disappeared.

 

 

In the real world, Hermann gasped, desperately catching his breath and scrambling out of his chair. Newton’s body hung limply in the opposite seat, his chest not moving. Getting his voice back, Hermann began to shout.

“Get the defibrillator in here immediately!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's very late (early?) here, and I've been working a lot lately so I actually had to Google "heart restart machine" because I was too tired to remember the word for it :D If there are typos, I don't have a beta so blame the tiredness and my hastiness, my apologies!!   
> Reviews, con-crit and comments are welcome and appreciated as usual, particularly let me know if you're finding my writing too waffly and overly-long as this is something I struggle with.


	7. Only Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Tuesday isn’t the weekend… I’m so very sorry this is late! It has been a WEEK guys, pretty sure my internship and my work has me about one minor incident from a meltdown. But by the end of next week, I’ll be over the hump of stress and sleeplessness and I’ll be focusing on getting a buffer of chapters written, so bear with me for better posting soon!
> 
> Also, this is nothing to do with this fic but I have opened fic commissions! Money is very tight for me at the minute as my job isn’t enough to sustain me with the hours I’m getting around working unpaid internships, so I’m offering out my fic writing services! More info here if you’re interested: https://m-brainmentality2.tumblr.com/post/173257011121/fanfic-commissions

Nate was through the door first, worried eyes taking in Hermann’s condition, then Newt. Jake followed him, crash cart in tow.

“You sure we wanna do this?” Jake asked as Hermann shuffled out of his way, allowing the Ranger to hurry to Newt’s side and place two fingers on the side of Newt’s neck. Hermann nodded sharply, his chest feeling painfully tight.

“There’s a pulse, but it’s not very strong,” Jake confirmed. Hermann wished he could feel relieved at the news, but there was little comfort in the revelation, considering…

Considering that Hermann’s plan involved killing him.

Both Jake and Nate had protested when he’s suggested the idea. It had been Hermann, after all, who had been fighting so vehemently to keep Newt safe, to keep anyone from harming him, and yet here he was. Ready to kill him.  

_It’s the only way to reset the neural network,_ he reminded himself, limping to Newt’s side. The thought of hurting him made Hermann feel sick. They’d had their spats in past years, Hermann had always been the one to throw the first chalk across the line, but he never, ever wanted to see Newt gone. He remembered walking in to find Newt seizing after his first Drift with the Kaiju brain and thinking what life might be like if Newt had really died, if the Drift had been too much for him. It had been a dark world in Hermann’s imagining.

“Resuscitation must occur _immediately_ ,” Hermann urged, “There cannot be a delay. The longer Newton is… the longer Newt’s heart has stopped, the more danger his brain is in. It takes only minutes to cause irreversible brain damage.”

“He does already have a hostile alien race in his head, it’s not like it could get much worse, yeah?” Jake’s nervous humour was well-intended but Hermann still had to crush the little flare of indignant anger in his chest. _This is not the time for jokes, Newton_ , his mind supplied. It was a reflex, even after ten years of separation.

“Let’s get this over with,” Hermann gritted out. Jake nodded jerkily and Hermann felt a little guilty for his irritation. The Ranger looked uncertain, his resolve shakier than when he had faced down the Mega-Kaiju in Tokyo.  Nate looked no better as he unbuttoned Newt’s shirt, casting furtive glances at Newt’s pale, gaunt face. Hermann tried not to look. The guilt and the fear was already gnawing enough at his stomach, without having to burn the image into his brain, possibly for the rest of his life, of his best friend about to die. He had enough nightmares.

“As soon as he has a pulse again, I will open the Drift. It shouldn’t be long after that – the Drift is only to give Newt a chance to find support; hopefully it will be enough to allow him to gain control,” Hermann said, picking up the PONS set. The doubt was altogether too crushing, too heavy in his heart. He sat, his hands barely steady enough to hold the equipment.

“On three,” Nate said. Jake looked at him with an indecipherable glance, the kind that Hermann had once been able to share with Newt. _You’re doing this for him._ He tried not to imagine what Newt would have said if he knew the full plan, if he’d have been appalled or, worse, would have been excited. His flippant disregard for his own wellbeing was always a sore point for Hermann.

Jake handed Nate the paddles and Nate, with a trepidation that Hermann rarely saw in him, placed them on Newt’s bare chest. Underneath the paddles, the outline of Newton’s ribs were prominent, and Hermann wondered if Newt had been eating even prior to capture. Had the Precursors controlled even what he ate? How and when he slept? For a brief, selfish second, Hermann wondered if they had controlled who Newton had kept in touch with since moving to Shao Industries… maybe they had even been behind the decision to move in the first place.  

Nate began his countdown and Hermann’s attention snapped back to the Newt, the parts of him that still shone through beneath the blood and the grime and the lack of care. His tattoos, faded slightly but still vibrant and swirling, as if they breathed and moved and thrived even while Newt was unconscious and restrained.

“Clear!” Nate shouted. Hermann’s own heart kicked in his chest as Nate shocked Newt, the force of it causing him to buck in his chair, body convulsing violently before falling limp and still. Hermann’s entire body was shaking with the effort not to throw up.

Nate pressed his fingers to Newt’s throat and waited. The stillness was enough to sky rocket the tension in the room into the territory of unbearable. Nate nodded a second later.

“His pulse is gone.”

_He’s gone_ , was what Hermann heard. Panic welled in his chest. Newt. Oh God, what had they done? The scientist in him was trying hard to remain calm, to carry out the experiment with the precision that he knew would be the difference between success and failure, life and death, but for all that Newt had teased his robotic logic, the emotional storm in Hermann’s head felt painfully noisy in that moment. He wanted to speak, to remind them that every second they wasted was seconds of precious, precious life dripping down the drain, but his brain wouldn’t connect to his mouth. His entire body felt disconnected, the only thing he knew for sure was that if he looked at Newton’s face now, he’d be haunted for the rest of his life.

Jake, fortunately, acted on Hermann’s stunned behalf. He signalled to Nate and then moved into Hermann’s eye line, blocking his view of Newt. The movement brought Hermann back to himself and he shakily considered the PONS set in his hand.

“You ready?” Jake asked.

“Yes,” Hermann answered instantly.

Hermann heard the charge and thud of the defibrillator again. His insides curled, knocking the breath out of him. What if they couldn’t start Newt’s heart again? What if Newt was done fighting? What if he was too tired, too tired after _ten years,_ ten lonely years that Hermann hadn’t –

Nate didn’t call out. The defibrillator was charged again and Jake wouldn’t move, he just kept his eyes locked on Hermann’s like a life line. With a distressed sound in the back of his throat, Hermann tried to stand, to get to Newton, to give his mind the punishment it deserved by facing what he’d done.

There was another thud of charge behind Jake.

“He’s back!” Nate shouted. Hermann collapsed back into the chair, his muscles losing the strength to stand. Giddy relief flooded through him, hysteria bubbling in his chest.

“You gotta go, doc,” Jake urged.  

Hermann didn’t bother stammering the half-crazed, delirious reply that was bubbling in his throat, instead he jammed the device on his head and, receiving the thumbs up from Nate, pressed the button once more.

 

 

_I don’t know who I am – it’s bright - please, no, please stop – hurts - Hermann where are you man? StoppleaseIcan’tdothis – I’m not strong enough, I’m not strongenough IamnotstrongenoughIamnotstrongenough helpmepleasehelpme_

Shards of white hot agony speared through Hermann's mind as he opened the Drift. Newt’s thoughts were scattered, the echoes of them howling and screaming with an electric crackle, the terror and pain singing at a high frequency screech. The Precursors too were splintered into fractals, confused but coalescing. Coming together faster than Newton’s thoughts were.

The hot thrill of urgency rushed through Hermann’s mind, centering him even as he cast about, upturning memories like shells at the beach. He had to find something to connect to, a piece of Newton that was rational, still _Newt_ , instead of the animalistic being, terrified out of his mind, that seemed to have shattered across his mindscape. Hermann needed to find something, _anything_ , to hold onto.

Hermann didn’t feel like he was attached to any kind of body this time. There was no maze to traverse, no solidly imagined space or constructions of thought. It was like the initial Drift they had both shared with the Kaiju during the war, the out of body feeling of being channeled through thought and emotion with speed, unable to control it.  But there were no cohesive thoughts to follow here; it was like being bounced in a pin ball machine, too quick to grab onto anything.  Hermann was painfully aware of the Precursors communicating in urgent, angry whispers, drawing together increasingly quickly. Their anger was palpable. If he didn’t find Newt now, he was going to lose him forever.

_Newt, you have to fight them. Please, fight them. I will help you._

The writhing, twisting parts of Newt’s mind didn’t change. Hermann could feel himself getting frantic and, to his horror, his hold on Newt’s consciousness slipped like a skid of his cane on wet floor.

_He’s not going to make it,_ something hissed in Hermann’s periphery and he realised with a kick of fear that the Precursors, even if they hadn’t found Newt yet, had found him. _We’re going to tear his mind apart, we’ll listen to him scream and beg before we end his pathetic existence. And then we’re coming for your world._

Hermann steeled his resolve. The sadistic twist in the Precursors’ words told Hermann more than they had bargained for. He was safe, until they found Newton, as hell bent as they were on destroying his mind. Which gave him precious seconds to find him before they did and bring at least some parts of his fragmented mind together.

_Did you hear that Newton? You have to fight, you have to get out before they find you._

Nothing. Hermann changed tactics without missing a beat. He knew Newt well enough by now.

_Newton, you’re the only hope we have. They’ll come to our world again, maybe this time they'll kill –_

There. Someplace distant in Newt’s mind but there was definitely a solid kick of something, a nagging feeling like an idea forming just out of reach. Hermann followed shattered thoughts, reaching out with his mind as best he could. He could feel Precursors all around him. For all he knew, he was leading them straight to Newt.

He felt something grab onto his mind, an unnatural sensation that felt not unlike being grabbed on the leg. His thoughts skittered to a halt, unable to progress, unable to move through Newt’s head. If Hermann had to, begrudgingly, admit, it felt like the force fields looked on one of Newt’s ridiculous “science” fiction shows. The claustrophobic feeling sparked panic in him and he struggled, fearing that the Precursors had perhaps already found Newt, had decided to come for him also.

A rush of emotion flooded him suddenly from the hold on his mind. Fear. Panic. Pain. Anxiety. Affection. Hermann stopped struggling. Newt. Newt had found him. He revelled in the feel of the one warm, tangible spark of consciousness in the dark, cold expanse of Newt’s thoughts. There were too many emotions to decipher but Hermann gripped tight.

_Don’t let go,_ Hermann urged, _Just don’t let go and we can free you._

Terror was almost absolute in Newt’s disjointed thoughts, and a self-loathing so strong that Hermann felt it like a physical wound.

_Newt, you are a good man. You are a good man. If any of that still remains, you know that you need to defeat these monsters. You need to return to us. I need you to come back._

It was slow, and the Precursors were fast. But Hermann could feel Newt’s mind gripping his, their Drift becoming stronger by the second. Newt’s memories, hazy and filled with static, began to mingle with Hermann’s, his thoughts becoming noisy and distracting, but Hermann clung on also. The thrill of the Drift suddenly lit up Hermann’s synapses and he felt that familiar longing, that odd sensation of oneness and connection, fill his thoughts. God, he had missed Newt. He had missed this, missed the total understanding of compatibility, missed knowing that his mind, damn, his _soul_ was reflected right next to him whenever they walked the halls of PPDC together.

The affection in Newt’s mind grew as he sensed Hermann’s spirits lift and Hermann seized onto that, fuelling the warmth in Newt’s mind. It had been so, so cold in here, Hermann realised. The Precursors had made Newt’s mind so unendurably cold, but the warmth spreading now, the strength of the Drift, the fortifying force of two minds at work to keep the demons at bay…

They were winning.

Hermann was thrown suddenly, his connection breaking and with a cry, he found himself back in the real world. He started in his chair and he vaguely noticed that Jake was holding his shoulders, crouched at Hermann’s side.

“Hermann, Hermann are you alright? Can you hear me?”

Hermann’s eyes were on Newt, who was _screaming_. He’d never heard a human being sound so tortured in his life, it was as if Newt was on fire from head to toe. Newt writhed in his bonds, blood flooding from his nose and even from one ear, his wrists bloodied too in his struggles. Nate was working to disable the restraints from the data pad on the wall, and Hermann slowly realised that more guards had entered the room behind them, guns trained on his friend. He didn’t have time to hate that as much as he wanted to. Instead he surged unsteadily out of the chair.

Jake was there to help him when the restraints clicked open and Newt dropped like a stone. Jake hooked Newt’s arm over his shoulder, easing him to the ground even as he screamed himself hoarse.

“What happened?” Jake said loudly, over the sound of Newt’s agonised cries.

“I have no idea,” Hermann replied, “I was thrown out of the Drift, I think-”

Newton stopped screaming suddenly, going still unnervingly fast. On instinct, Hermann put his hand to Newt’s neck, checking the pulse. Sporadic and so very weak, but still there. He could feel everyone around him holding their breath, the room becoming utterly still. There was nothing for a long moment.

Then, Newt groaned, blinking his eyes open and squinting even in the low light. A whimpering sound made its way out of his throat as he tried to move, agitated and pained.

“Newt?” Hermann asked. If the Precursors replied, he wasn’t sure his heart would sustain it.

Newt allowed Jake to roll him over, and Hermann, leg be damned, pulled Newt’s body closer to his, resting his friend’s head on his thighs. The Precursors could most certainly kill him here, if they were in charge, and Nate’s warning glance told Hermann so. Hermann didn’t care. If they were in there, and not Newton, killing him would honestly be a mercy.

He wished he could be a scientist about this, wished he could ask the scientific questions and understand the facts. But there was only one set of facts he wanted, and the fear of being wrong had the words sticking in his throat.

Eventually, Newt swallowed, his throat clicking with dryness. His face was caked in blood, his chest rising and falling heavily. When he spoke, it sounded as if his throat had been completely shredded with screaming.

“I’m your only hope? That… that was a Star Wars line, man.”

Jake laughed from beside them, wavering with relief, and Hermann vaguely saw Nate’s grin from the corner of his eye. Hermann felt a sob well up in his throat but something in his mind still tormented him, couldn’t quite believe it. How would they know that this wasn’t an act? How could they ever know that Newt was himself, that the Precursors weren’t mimicking him? How could –

Newt giggled hysterically, stifling a groan as the action jarred his ribs.

“Dude, they’re… they’re _quiet._ I can still feel them but they’re so quiet. I can't believe how...” Newt licked his lips, seemingly surprised when he tasted blood. He sounded dazed. His face turned several shades paler than it already was and Hermann could only help him turn to the side when Newt vomited, too hard for his bruised ribs no doubt.

“It’s just… it’s a lot, you know?” Hermann didn’t know exactly what was a lot, but that was apparently all it took for something profound to hit Newt and tears began to leak from his eyes. His chest hitched in sobs and Hermann tried to hold him still through them, murmuring nonsensical platitudes into his ear as Newt’s cries increased in strength.

Hermann hated himself for doubting. If Newt, the broken, brilliant man in his arms told him that he was himself, Hermann didn’t need any other proof. It was unscientific, it was irrational… Hermann didn’t care a single bit.

Newt was sobbing apologies into Hermann’s blazer, interspersed with what Hermann was sure would be useful information on the Precursors, if he cared to listen. But right now, it really didn’t matter. Even when Newt passed out just a minute later, rambling and crying in mindless fear, his anxiety spiking that surely the Precursors were waiting for him in his sleep, Hermann didn’t care.

If the Precursors wanted to come back, they’d damn well have to fight him for Newt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so this chapter ended on what seemed like a definitive ending??? But I promise, it’s not! This chapter opens up the next part of the fic, which deals with Newt’s recovery. It’s gonna be a long one – I hope you’ll keep joining me for the ride! But for now, this chapter has a happy(?) ending so I hope that eases a little bit of the pain before it continues.
> 
> Also: Too Cheesy at times? Be honest :D
> 
> Comments are very much appreciated as usual and thanks for reading!


	8. In Control(?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, thank you so much for your comments on the last chapter guys, you really made my week, all of you are amazing! As promised, this chapter is on time!
> 
> A note: As I said, there isn’t any explicit slash in this story BUT I’ve been planning this fic and honestly, as it stands, there will be a sequel that contains slash. These boys are in love, I love them and I don’t want to derail the natural pull that they have towards each other when I’m writing. However, this fic isn’t the time for romance as Newt and Hermann have a lot of stuff to battle through besides their love for each other – but I can say that I am planning to write them as a pairing in the next fic and, thereby this fic is, I guess, pre-slash. I’m sorry if I’m not making much sense, if you have questions, let me know! If this disappoints anyone, or changes anyone’s enjoyment of the fic, I apologise but I feel it best to be candid about my intentions in the planning.

Newt wakes sharply. His heart is already thudding painfully in his chest when his eyes snap open and his breath is staccato in panic. He can't breathe. There's no oxygen. It’s as if the air is getting trapped at the back of his mouth, blocking his airways, choking him from the inside. He panics and tries to raise his arms to feel what the _hell is wrong with his throat_ but he can’t move them, his wrists straining against something solid. He whimpers desperately, his world blurry even with his eyes wide open, staring wildly. Pain is starting to make itself known in every part of his body and he struggles hard, sobs rising in his chest. He doesn’t know what they’re doing to him this time, he can’t _see_ , he can’t stop them from doing whatever they want with his body, he can never stop them, they keep hurting him, they –

“Newt, Newt, please stop struggling, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

Hermann’s voice made it over his whimpering and Newt had to process for a second that it was real. It really was Hermann, rather than a voice emanating from inside his head. His breathing didn’t slow and his heart was still thumping and jarring his sore rib cage, but he stilled his hands and legs with difficulty. It took all of his energy not to keep struggling and he could feel the ache in his limbs worsen as he tensed them in an effort to remain still.

“It’s alright Newt, you’re safe. You’re in the infirmary at the Shatterdome, the restraints are only a precaution. I am Doctor Hermann Gottlieb, we’ve known each other for some time,” Hermann said. Newt let out a shaky laugh that sounded manic even to himself.

“Yeah, no shit dude,” Newt countered. He couldn’t see Hermann, blurred as his world was, but he could practically feel the displeasure radiate from him.

“Well, excuse me for trying to ensure you’re oriented,” he heard Hermann pout, “It’s not an exact science to have extracted Precursors from a human brain.” If Hermann didn’t sound so offended, Newt was sure he’d have been smug at the achievement, but gauging his voice was difficult right now. He’d not seen Hermann in so long, not really, not for more than a moment. Hearing his voice again without it being filtered through ears that weren’t his own was frankly a bit overwhelming.

“Newt?” That was worry in his tone, Newt was sure. No wonder, considering that his breathing had picked up again without his permission. The lack of control didn’t help the oncoming panic attack and he screwed his eyes closed, trying to ride out the wave of stimuli that made his synapses feel like they were singed and splintering in his brain. There was just so much right now and he had the uncomfortable thought that this was precisely why babies cried so much when they were born. He felt like crying too, right now. There was too much noise, too much sound, all of it turned up to full after almost ten years of dampened, filtered life. He realised belatedly that he _was_ crying. He wanted to be able to control his own body now, even just for a moment, but it seemed to be acting of its own accord, reacting and panicking and crying without his consent.

“It’s alright Newton, you just need to calm your breathing. You are not currently in any danger, you are safe, here in this room,” Hermann said calmly and Newt felt an almost jealous pang of frustration at his calmness. He remembered for a moment, a long, long time ago, when Hermann had caught him some time after midnight in their shared lab, suffering from a panic attack strong enough to bring him to his knees. He thought that Hermann would have mocked him, or told him to pull himself together, perhaps, but instead Hermann had sat with him. He’d even talked him through it, seating himself close enough so that Newt knew he was there, without being too close. They’d never spoken about it again, but Newt had never felt like he could trust anyone more than that.

The memory calmed him a little and he seized the opening, drawing his breaths in and out slowly. Eventually his breathing became a little more normal and he smiled nervously in Hermann’s direction. Before he could speak, the shady blotch in his vision that Newt assumed was Hermann moved.

“I have your glasses here, if you require them. I wasn’t sure, I hadn’t seen you wearing them in a while… But I considered that perhaps you might need them.”

Unable to speak through the lump in his throat, Newt nodded. _God, yes please._ There was a scuffle of noise and someone else in the room muttered something which caused Hermann to whisper-snap back at them. Newt tensed at the conflict, his body shrinking in the hospital sheets.

He jumped when something touched his face, letting out a small, involuntary cry. His brain took far too long to process that it was only his glasses touching the bridge of his nose, then slipping behind his ears and then, finally, his world fell into place. Hermann was directly above him for a moment, his concerned, soft expression taking Newt by surprise before he moved out of his line of sight again, hobbling away from the bed. Newt found that he was, indeed, in a bed in the infirmary and Hermann was seated on an uncomfortable looking chair some way away from the bed. Newt didn’t need to be able to see it to know that there was most likely a tape outline around his bed, to prevent anyone from getting too close. There always seemed to be a line of tape separating the pair of them.

With his clearer vision, he caught movement in the corner of the room and looked just in time to see Jake Pentecost leaving with a warning look at Hermann. Hermann held his ground with a steely look. Newt knew the man only from what he had seen through the Precursors and from Stacker’s stories –

Newt stopped that train of thought right there, tears blurring his vision again, spiralling him closer to panic. He was getting sick already of constantly feeling like he was on the verge of hyperventilating himself into unconsciousness.

The blurriness reminded him of being under the Precursor’s control. They hadn’t cared about his eyesight and, most of the time, the Precursors could see without needing input from his brain, as if they were looking straight through him. He was just a lens, a puppet, an object for them to –

Newt felt sick suddenly and he couldn’t stop himself. He wriggled onto his side despite the bindings that were keeping him tied down, wrists burning, throat burning, and vomited. It was mostly bile, as he hadn’t eaten in a long time and it felt like acid hitting his tongue. Like Kaiju blue. Some of it hit his pillow, which was disgusting, frankly. Fortunately most of it made it to the floor, but the fact that he’d just vomited so uncontrollably, ironically because of his own _lack_ of control, was so humiliating that he wanted to shuffle as deep into the covers as possible and never come out. His face was probably bright red and he could hear the scrape of Hermann’s chair and the clack of his cane. Newt didn’t even want to look at him. Hermann was probably disgusted with him.

He tried to hold back more tears. He didn’t want there to be this much…everything. He wanted cool darkness and to be left alone, and to not have to hurt. The click of the cane moved closer and Newt’s vision cleared when a damp cloth swiped under his glasses, cleaning the tears around his eyes. He jerked back, not getting far, and the cloth continued, cleaning his mouth and chin with proficiency. Aghast, Newt watched Hermann work, the way his face was stony in concentration, his eyes giving nothing away. The action would have been tender if not for Hermann's efficient, purposeful movements. There was something almost scientific about the way he cleaned the space, like it was an area of lab that needed to be wiped down.

“It’s alright,” Hermann repeated for what felt like the hundredth time.

“No it’s not, it’s disgusting,” Newt snapped venomously. Both of them blinked, taken aback. Newt wasn’t even sure where that had come from. Not that Newt hadn’t had his fair share of self-loathing tirades when the figures hadn’t added up during the war, or Stacker had put pressure on their projects, but the instant, cruel rebuke shocked both of them.

“Alright.” Hermann said. It made Newt feel uncertain when Hermann didn’t argue with him and the measured, careful tone to his voice made it even worse.

“Sorry, sorry, that wasn’t -”

“Newt, you do not have to apologise. As I emphasized, this is not a science, there is no telling the kind of… ramifications that this will have on you. To me, at least, you can say whatever you like.”

Newt looked away from Hermann, who sat down on the chair again with a wince. His leg looked stiff and Newt had the reflexive desire to fetch him his pills, or maybe a heat pack, anything to make it a little less painful. Tied down as he appeared to be, with handcuffs on his wrists and feet, there wasn’t much of a chance at that.   

Hermann was evidently thinking the same thing, rubbing his thigh with an open palm. Newt bit his lip. He felt like he was in the middle of a bad, frightening trip, where all the colours and lights and sounds of the world felt like they were being beamed at him at full intensity. The Precursors were silent but, Newt noticed with a shiver, they still felt vaguely present, like something he could remember if only he tried hard enough. It was a scab that hadn’t quite healed. The feeling had his entire body locking in terror. He didn’t want to think about them. Didn’t want to think about what he’d done.

“Hermann, you… you need to lock me up again,” Newt stammered, “I’m not safe. I killed… I murdered all those people, I nearly ended the world man, holy shit, I nearly killed you and – and, they wouldn’t even let me out of there for two minutes, I can’t do that again, you’re not safe-”

“Newton, stop.”

“No Hermann, there’s no point-”

“Newt, stop it. I’m not going to put you back in that cell, you’re not a murderer.”

“I killed all those people-”

“You are _not_ a bad person Newton, you didn’t mean to do any of this.”

“Hermann!” Newt yelled. And his voice sounded so weak that for a split second, for the briefest of instances, he wished he could sound like the Precursors had; loud and powerful and strong. The thought shattered him from the base of his spinal cord to the back of his throat and he cried out a sob. Pain shot out of him in a coughing, gasping sound that he was vaguely aware as coming from his tightening lungs but he couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t stop keening like a wild, wounded animal.

Hermann’s arms were around him in moments, lifting his shoulders from the bed. He wanted to ask when Hermann became so touchy feely, if it was when Newt had begun enjoying tea rather than coffee and favouring one leg while brushing his teeth in the morning, or if it was only after he’d realised his lab partner was possessed by the worst evil the world had ever faced. But, right now, speaking was entirely impossible.

He continued to weep, embarrassingly, openly, as Hermann muttered in his ear.

“We will help you through this Newton. The Precursors are gone, and what remains is a good man, you must know this,” Hermann was saying. Newt wanted to argue and was frustrated that he couldn’t. No good man would try to destroy the world. No good man would try to kill his best friend while looking him dead in the eye, because he was too weak to stop it.

“It will not be easy, that we both know, but we will not give up, Newton. I will help you.” Hermann drew back and Newt felt his chest ease when Hermann’s determined, certain face came into view. He looked like Newt remembered him on the final day of the war. Certain, strong. So much stronger than Newt ever was.

“With the Precursors no longer in control, we can keep you here for observation,” Hermann said and his voice was firm, but more business-like now. Newt recognised the PPDC tone anywhere and hated whoever had told Hermann to relay this bullshit. “Until we can be sure that you’re improving. And then… then we can decide from there.”

That didn’t sound good. The flicker of his eyes told Newt that Hermann thought so too, and the lie in itself made Newt want to squirm out of his restraints at the soonest possible opportunity. Hermann seemed to sense his unease and had the decency to look away for a second, apologetic.

“It’s not what I wish I could offer, but given the circumstances, I am not the only one in charge of monitoring your rehabilitation,” Hermann explained, “But I won’t let them punish you for things you didn’t do. Nor will I let them blame you.”

 _But you did do those things,_ a voice in Newton’s head whispered. He flinched, biting his tongue hard.

“I deserve it,” Newton said quietly. Hermann frowned.

“No, Newt, you don’t.” They locked eyes for a second and Newt wished he had the energy to fight but he really, really didn’t. For how quiet his brain had been when he had woke, it was noisier than ever now. He hated his own thoughts, he really did.

Noting his tiredness, Hermann gave him one last glance up and down and nodded sharply.

“I will send a doctor in later,” Hermann said.

“Dude, you _are_ a doctor.”

“Not that you ever seem to remember that,” Hermann retorted, “I’ll send in a doctor _of medicine_ and they will be able to give you something for the pain. But if you’re tired, I suggest you rest.”

“Yeah,” Newt mumbled, eyes already drooping, “I figured that, thanks.”

Hermann raised an eyebrow and turned to leave.

“Hermann?” Hermann turned, eyebrow still raised.

“Thanks man,” Newt said. Hermann’s expression softened. “I mean it, I don’t know why you’d still… I just… I’m glad to like, see things for myself one more time, you know? Like, I’d kind of forgotten what you’d looked like for a minute, before this past few weeks. I… er… yeah. Thanks, man, seriously.”

Hermann looked at him for a long moment and Newt wasn’t sure when his expressions had become so unreadable to him. It made him uncomfortable.

“Get some rest, Newton,” Hermann said. He left without another word.

The whispering in Newton’s head increased almost immediately, the volume drowning out his own thoughts for a moment.

 _Did you really think we’d leave you alone? How pathetic,_ the Precursors whispered, _We’ll make sure he dies first. You’ll kill him in his sleep. And then, we'll finish what we started._

When a guard walked in a second later, Newt was grateful he didn’t acknowledge the way he cried himself to sleep. If he wanted to feel any weaker than he already did, there was enough of that inside his own head as it was.

_Be careful when you sleep Geiszler, we’re waiting._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is any of this OOC? If so, let me know where! Thanks again for reading guys :)


	9. Going Nowhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week has felt really long for some reason? I did post last week, right? My 3 main deadlines fall on Tuesday so I've been doing the final push towards freedom; I'm chuffed to have this out on time! As usual, thank you all for your lovely comments, if I didn't get round to replying to you, I probably will, it's just been busy! You know I love and appreciate all of you.   
> Also, is the chapter title inspired by a new Frank Turner song? Yes, yes it is, because I love the new album, it is pure and good and Brave Face is 100% a post-Uprising Newmann song WOW.

Hermann felt dazed as he left the infirmary. He turned two corners before he noticed he was on autopilot and stopped short, realising his legs were taking him back to the interrogation cell. Jake, who had been tagging on behind him since he left, stopped also, halfway through a sentence that Hermann hadn’t heard.

“Doc, where are you going?” Jake said. Hermann turned to him and he must have looked lost because Jake reached out and placed a hand on his arm.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. Jake nodded and, scouting around for a suitable place, led him down the hall to an empty meeting room. He closed the door, leading Hermann to a chair. Hermann was oddly glad to sit again, the weightlessness in his body dropping back into a solid weight. Jake perched on the table, looking at him warily.

“I apologise-” Hermann began.

“It’s okay, I get it,” Jake said, “I guess it’s been a while since you two really spoke, huh?” Hermann nodded. Although he truly hated to admit it, hated to admit to the failure on his part that might have saved them all of this, but Newt hadn’t even looked like himself in a very long time. That pasty, frail body in there with the glasses on his nose and his now overgrown hair messed up in all directions was the most he’d looked like himself in years. It knocked the wind out of Hermann’s chest.

“I should have seen it before,” Hermann whispered, “This is all my fault.”

“Hey, no, it’s not your fault. The Precursors are smart, they made sure no-one knew. And how were you ever going to figure out that your friend was _possessed_ , right? I mean, it’s kind of crazy.”

“We fight Kaiju with robots, we rather deal in crazy,” Hermann argued, “And I did work it out… just too late. If I’d simply have spent more time with him-”

“You can’t change that. All you can do is be there for him now,” Jake asserted. Hermann knew he was right. There was nothing that could be done for the past, only the present and, perhaps, the future. But as for the past staying where it was, Hermann couldn’t agree. His nightmares were proof enough of that.  


* * *

 

  
Over the next few days, however, Hermann barely had time for nightmares. He was in the infirmary every day and, even though Newt slept through most of it, Hermann didn’t mind. Newt’s brain needed the rest and sometimes Hermann would sit and watch him sleep, imagining the neurones fusing and realigning in his friend’s head. Newt would tease him once he woke up, quoting pop culture from _Twilight_ to slasher movies about Hermann’s tendency to watch him sleep, but Hermann got the feeling that Newt was somewhat grateful. Every time he slept, he seemed more and more afraid that he wouldn’t wake up as himself and Hermann imagined he appreciated a watchful eye.

As much as it was good to see him back physically however, neither Newt’s physical nor mental one seemed to improve in any manner. The food he ate seemed to come back up very quickly and his hands still shook so much at times that his restraints rattled. Hermann had argued to have them removed but until there was a full psychological test done, they were to stay on.

Newt’s mind had crumbled much more than his body. There was no telling the full extent. Hermann’s scientific brain knew that this controlled sample of activity was no real indicator or test for the damage, but even here, it was clear that the Precursors had shredded his mind. Newt awoke nightly from night terrors, screaming, so much so that one night he spent quarter of an hour coughing out blood from his shredded throat, much to Hermann’s horror. His wavering, choked “It’s okay, it’s just blood” made Hermann feel even worse. When awake, he’d often become confused very quickly, his mind not following even the most simple of logic. For someone who had seen Newt’s brilliant mind in action, it was startling to see. Newt seemed frustrated at it too and his inability to make the simplest of decisions seemed to aggravate his nervousness to no end.

Worse than his action was his inaction. For as many days that Newt was irritated and anxious, there were days when Hermann couldn’t get him to speak, no matter how much coaxing he tried or how much bickering he tried to initiate. Newt would stare at the walls as if he was seeing something else and Hermann could never get him to speak about it afterwards. In fact, Newt spoke less in general in the short moments he was awake, his normal inane chatter slowing to a trickle of slightly forced, weak jabs at making Hermann stop acting questions. Hermann wished he could feel offended but Newt didn’t seem to realise how much he was shutting him out. Hermann couldn’t blame him.  
  
On his worst days, Newt couldn’t process what he’d done. The memories of the past ten years, _what they made him do_ , created a gaping pit in his stomach that simply wouldn’t close. The guilt froze him until he couldn’t move or eat or even breathe and it felt as if nothing would ever break him out of it again.

“If you allow this to destroy you, Newton, they’ve won. Yours will be another death to add to their tally,” Hermann would say firmly when he caught Newt falling into staring at the wall for too long.

_To my tally_ , Newt wanted to correct him. He really didn’t have the will to speak though, so he let it lie.

“If you want to help, you must do so by surviving. You can help us take the fight to them, you can do so much good for the world still.”

That idea seemed to help a little. Or at least, it allowed Newt’s throat to take in air, even if he still couldn’t move because of the crushing, agonising weight on his chest that seemed to never leave his waking hours. Sometimes he would pretend to be asleep, just so Hermann wouldn't ask him to talk when it felt like his insides were being clamped and crushed under an invisible mound of dirt and shame. He felt even guiltier for lying to Hermann, especially when he always seemed so happy and excited to talk, so unlike his old self, whenever Newt blinked his eyes open at him. Newt wished there was a way to make it hurt less whenever Hermann looked at him like that, like there was nothing wrong and he was just excited to see him. He wanted to hate Hermann for it, just a little, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. 

The next day the weight had him staring through the wall, out into a silent, obliterated graveyard of Tokyo, Hermann came prepared.

He shoved a typed list into Newton’s hands.

“I spent all of last night compiling bullet points of fictional characters I believe you’re familiar with that have been possessed. And all of them went on to do wonderful things with their life, it seems,” Hermann said. The conviction and logic in his voice startled a laugh out of Newt for the first time since he was moved to this godawful infirmary. It was so un-Hermann like to put any stock in Newt’s pop culture, but the sentiment was vaguely heart-warming in an awkward kind of way and the clear attempt at making him laugh made something warm bubble in his chest for the first time in a long time.

“Dude, you’re the first one to say that fiction isn’t like real life,” Newt countered, scanning the list anyway. There was a surprisingly large number and they spanned books, comics and movies, some that even Newt only vaguely recognised.

“Yes, but… real people wrote these stories. It’s therefore illogical to believe that committing actions outside of your control is beyond forgiveness,” Hermann said softly. Newt swallowed past the lump in his throat.

“Er, thanks,” Newt choked out.

“You’re welcome. And for the record, I will not be referring to you as any of these names, so don’t bother asking.”

“Not even Indiana Jones?”

“Especially not Indiana Jones, Newton.”

“Harry Hart?”

“Newt, do go to sleep.”  
  


* * *

 

   
It came to a head early one morning, on Day Eight, when Hermann entered the infirmary to find Newt screaming in agony, bucking against four nurses who were attempting to hold him down.

Hermann bolted forwards, throwing his cane into his usual chair. A nurse tried to stop him but Hermann simply dodged them with a disdainful glance, pushing through to Newt’s bedside.

“What’s going on?” Hermann demanded.

The doctor, a direct, perceptive woman named Dr Linda, sent him a sympathetic look from across the bed. She’d been generous with her visiting times, as a professional courtesy perhaps.

“He’s been like this all night, the sedatives have just worn off,” she explained and Hermann grimaced as she began preparing another drug in the IV line.

“All night?” Hermann exclaimed, “And no-one thought to call me?” Doctor Linda depressed the plunger on the syringe, filling the line as she spoke.

“Doctor Gottlieb, visiting times are one thing but I can't alert you every single time something happens.”

Hermann scowled. Newt’s screams were lessening, his thrashing slowing to a twitch as the drugs began to act.

“That doesn’t stop him from feeling pain,” Hermann pointed out, “It just prevents us from hearing it.”

Dr Linda waved the nurses away and they were left alone, albeit with the ever present guard by the door.

“Which is why I’ve found the source of the pain,” she explained, “So that we can combat it. But… you’re not going to like this.”  
  


* * *

   
Whatever was wrong with Newt apparently required the presence of Rangers Pentecost and Lambert, Hermann thought bitterly. Dr Linda had organised for them all to meet in her office, her face grave when they entered. It was a neat little room with potted plants lining the interior facing window, and scattered family photos in well-kept frames. Hermann wished he could be in the infirmary, with Newt, but the expression on the doctor’s face told him that he needed to hear this, whether he liked it or not.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed that, despite our best efforts, Dr Geiszler’s situation has not improved,” she began, “He’s unable to maintain an appetite, he’s losing weight and I cannot speak for the deterioration of his mental state, but from the physical manifestations, it is evidently a big problem. Yesterday his condition worsened dramatically. His temperature sky-rocketed, he was in a great deal of pain and his speech was nonsensical.”

Hermann, in another time, another life, might have joked that everything Newton Geiszler had to say was nonsensical. As it stood, all he could manage was not to march out of the room and back to the infirmary as fast as his legs would carry him.

“We believe we have isolated the problem but it is… an unexpected speedbump.”

“Speedbump?” Nate repeated, “What do you mean?”

“We couldn’t be sure of the kind of implications such a patient would have,” Dr Linda said. Hermann refrained from telling her that _the patient_ had a name.

“This was something we didn’t expect,” she said, “It is becoming increasingly clear that Dr Geiszler is experiencing withdrawal.”

Hermann scoffed, unable to control himself. The rest of the room was deathly silent.

“Withdrawal?” Hermann said incredulously, “That’s not possible, the Precursors were an invading body, he’s not withdrawing from anything. You’ve misdiagnosed.” Dr Linda, to her credit, didn’t flinch at the accusation.

“I’m afraid not, it’s not the Precursors that he is withdrawing from. His condition is much more complex than that. It’s the only way to explain such a rapid decline.”

Jake put a tentative hand in the air, waving it a little to get their attention.

“Um, what is going on?” Jake asked, “What is he withdrawing from what exactly?”

“The search team found a piece of a Kaiju brain in Dr Geiszler’s home,” Dr Linda said, “From what we know, he was engaging in frequent Drifts with it. Perhaps even daily Drifts.”

“Alice,” Hermann supplied numbly. Something fell into place in his brain and the whole horrifying picture began to crystallise. He had to admit, the doctor had managed to anticipate something he hadn’t even been able to conceive of. It was, he supposed, what made her the best doctor on the base. The implications for Newt, however…

Jake looked like he would have laughed, if the situation wasn’t so awful. He looked from Hermann, to Dr Linda.

“It is highly unlikely that Dr Geiszler would have drifted with the brain voluntarily after the first time, so it’s possible that he was forced or confused when he drifted with… Alice again for a subsequent time.  Maybe he was doing research, maybe he was searching for a way to cure the faulty Drift problems or the nightmares, we can’t be sure, but what occurred after that is rather self-explanatory.”

Hermann felt like he wanted to cry. Now that the facts were in front of him, it seemed obvious. He should have predicted this. He’d felt that same awful rush, that same floating feeling of pure adrenaline that had made him vomit after his first experience with the Kaiju Drift. Jake looked at the two doctors, confused.

“Yeah, alright, explain how that’s self-explanatory but like, as if I was five years old or something.” Nate, who had been stood stoically silent, his arms crossed, rolled his eyes at him.

“The Kaiju Drift pumps huge amounts of endorphins into the brain,” Hermann explained, “A Jaeger Drift is similar; the brain releases endorphins when it interacts in social activity, which is an intense part of the Drift. To understand and be understood in a social connection with another human being, it’s… pleasurable for animals with pack bonds, like humans.”

Hermann thought about his own need for people after the end of the war, when the nightmares set in and the nights became dark. How he’d opened himself, little by little, with more smiles, with a hug here and there, a little less baiting and a little more connecting. He could understand that need.

He didn’t even realise he was lost in thought until Dr Linda picked up his explanation. 

“A Kaiju Drift is slightly different in that the neural high is more akin to, say, extreme sports. It’s the interaction with danger, the thrill of controlled fear that releases the endorphins. It’s a more intense rush so it can become addictive. In this case, highly addictive,” Dr Linda said.

“So you’re saying that Newt is addicted to Kaiju brain?” Jake said. Hermann was going to argue but Jake added, “That’s kind of weird, but I’ve seen it.” Hermann squinted at him with suspicion.

“Not, like, with a Kaiju,” Jake explained, “Some Jaeger pilots… they can get sort of high on piloting the Jaegers, being in a neural link with their co-pilot, they can’t sleep if they’re not hooked up sometimes. It’s different with Newt I guess, but yeah… I can kind of get it.” Next to him, Nate met his eye and there was a soft, understanding hue to the look, something Hermann couldn't interpret.

“The fallout of which is that there is both good news and bad news,” Dr Linda said, “The good news being that we have found the problem and can help to manage it. The bad news is that Dr Geiszler will have to fight this very hard, and his body may not be strong enough. It will be very painful.”

_Newton, have you ever made anything easy?_ Hermann thought.

“I’ll stay with him,” Hermann said instantly and then amended, “If I may.” Dr Linda nodded.

“That would probably be best, actually. There’s not really any normal circumstances we can compare this to, and a Drift partner is covered under family visitation allowances, if nothing else,” she conceded. Hermann hadn’t known that, had thought that she'd perhaps just been generous with the time she’d given him, but now it made much more sense. Of course Drift partners had family visitation time. He’d seen many Jaeger pilots rush to their co-pilot's bedside after the dust had died, and stayed there, waxing and waning for days on end until they were finally discharged.

“I have to warn you, however, withdrawal can be nasty,” Dr Linda said, “He’s liable to say some things he doesn’t mean.” Hermann smiled wryly.

“It’ll be like having the old Newton back.”  
  


* * *

 

  
Hermann returned to the infirmary an hour later with a fresh change of clothes and a tray of food from the canteen. The guard at the door checked it thoroughly, as if he thought Hermann was going to sneak a razor blade or a skeleton key in with the jello. Hermann made sure to snort an extra derisive huff of laughter when he was waved inside.

Newt was still sleeping, looking more unkempt than ever, his longer hair beginning to curl at the edges and the stubble on his cheeks thickening. He never did grow much facial hair, a constant source of complaining when the fancy for a change in look took him, and the dark patches of hair were testament to how long Newt had gone without a proper shave and shower. Hermann longed to barter a shower for him, or at least the opportunity to shave him, but with the new turn of events there wasn’t much chance of that.

With a heavy sigh, he sat down by the bed, placing the tray on his lap. He really didn’t feel like eating.

Digging into his pockets, he took out the other item he’d brought with him, looking at it with a pull of emotion in his stomach. He could almost feel the guard’s scrutiny behind him but he ignored it, favouring a long look at the crumpled picture he now held in his hand. It was a photograph of himself and Newt in LOCCENT, as the countdown clock had been stopped on the apocalypse, Newt’s face captured in a grin at Hermann’s own sheepish smile. He’d had it on his desk for almost ten years now and had had it reprinted at least once when a sample of Kaiju blood had smashed on it, but he’d recently copied himself a duplicate. Newt needed this one more than he did, even if he wouldn’t know it when he woke up.

Hermann wasn’t sure himself why he’d brought it along, why he thought it would help Newt struggle through something he shouldn’t have to, _again_. Maybe it was a reminder that the end of the world had still yet to come, that they were both still here despite everything. Or a reminder that Newt once knew how to smile with his whole heart and make the room light up like summer. Maybe it was enough to just see that Hermann was still there, captured by his side at that moment and in this one.

He looked at Newt’s sleeping form in the bed and considered the days to follow, the pain and the tears and the uncertainty that anything would be the same again. It was going to be difficult. It always was with Newt. But for every time Hermann woke from his nightmares of losing Newt on that roof, of the Precursors stumbling into the heart of the maze just a fraction too early, there was a moment that Hermann thanked whoever was listening that at least he was _here_. With Hermann. No matter the cost. 

Newt stirred, a look of discomfort contorting his face, the heart rate monitor spiking. Hermann steeled himself. He wasn’t going anywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love reading your comments as always guys, thanks so much for reading! Till next week my dears!


	10. Withdrawal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this late in the evening yet again? Yes, yes it is. Why? Well tbh this week I had a wee worry that I’d maybe taken on too much in this fic –i.e. ten years of Trauma and Suffering in a (albeit multi-chap) fic, and the worry that I’m maybe not the best writer to be delivering said fic to you all, considering my tendency to over-write. BUT I really enjoy writing this fic and at this stage in my writing life I don’t know how to not over-write so I’m gonna keep delivering this story to you in the only way I can/know how.

After the first week of withdrawal, Hermann didn’t believe Newton could get any worse. The long laundry list of symptoms that Dr Linda had given him didn’t remotely seem to cover most of the problems that plagued Newt night and day, and Hermann found himself spending every waking hour, and plenty of sleeping ones, at his bedside.

The migraines were the worst. They weren’t a typical withdrawal symptom, but the Drift changed everything. The lack of consistent adrenaline forced Newt’s brain into working much harder for longer, causing headaches that had him retching into a bowl for hours on end, or curled over in his restraints, sobbing with agony. Hermann could barely watch his suffering sometimes. It was all he could do to smooth Newton’s hair as he writhed and begged, holding him down gently as the nurses filled his IV with cocktails of pain medication.

Newton sweated constantly, and his entire body shook alarmingly, if his muscles weren’t already tensing and cramping painfully. He would manage a grim smile at Hermann sometimes and grit out a comment that would always seem wildly inappropriate for the amount of pain he was in.

“I-if I keep clenching up like this, do you think I’ll get a six pack?” Newt forced out at some stage, through a locked jaw.

“Do be quiet Newton,” was all Hermann could reply, trying to keep some pretense of normality.

By the second week, Hermann wasn’t sure how much he, or Newton, could take. Newton’s fight was waning along with whatever physical strength he had left and the cravings were kicking in. His mood swung like a pendulum, sometimes silent and stoic through the agony, sometimes loudly making a plea for relief. Hermann wanted to hate the latter most, wanted to hate the unfair addiction that made Newton beg to Drift _just once, just once please_ , but he honestly hated the silence more. When Newt was silent, it wasn't like his friend at all. It felt like a shell, a quiet outline that looked like Newt but didn’t act like him.

Today however, Hermann realised, was not a quiet day.

Newt was straining hard against his restraints, the chafing on his wrists looking more sore by the day. Hermann wanted nothing more than to untie him, at the very least to make him comfortable, but it was out of the question. There was a guard in the room for a reason and Newt wasn’t the only one he was watching.

“Hermann,” Newt gritted out, his green eyes glazed and hazy from the painkillers in his system, “God, Hermann it’s like, it’s like this itch in the back of my skull and I can’t – I  can’t stand it, please, please Hermann.”  The desperation on his face almost made Hermann cave. Newt choked out a gasp, seeming to choke on it in his need to push out more words, to get across the craving that Hermann could never understand, no matter how much he tried.

Newt had tried before to explain it to him, had tried to coerce and beg and force Hermann into giving him just one more shot at Drifting with Alice, but Hermann hadn’t budged. He couldn’t, not when he knew that this would never end if he did. Dr Linda had warned him that Newt’s desperation to end his withdrawal would lead him to the most simple and logical solution – to Drift again. It wasn’t just an addicts mentality, it was logic. To cure the pain, the simplest route was to fill the brain back up with that same adrenaline, the same rush; but it wasn’t so simple. If Newt was to beat this thing, he had to stop for good, no matter how painful it was.

“Hermann, listen man, you gotta listen to me,” Newt said. He was sweating profusely, his tongue flicking out to wipe his lip clean. Another shiver wracked his body and Newt jerked like he was being run through with electricity. “They – they don’t know what they’re doing. Seriously Hermann, this isn't gonna work, _please._ ”

“The doctor knows what she’s doing, Newton,” Hermann insisted, but even his resolve was wavering at the ache in Newt’s voice. What if he was right?

“ _Please_ , please Hermann, just two minutes, okay? The Precursors won’t get in with two minutes dude, you gotta let me Drift or I swear man, I think I’m gonna die,” his face shifted, terror and agony morphing his expression into a mask that Hermann didn’t recognise, “Jeez, Hermann, I don’t wanna die like this, I don’t wanna die in here, please.”

Hermann leaned forward and, for the briefest of seconds, considered taking Newt’s hand. He held back at the last second, his stomach twisting in bitter regret.

“Newton, you have to be strong. This won’t kill you, but it will hurt until the withdrawal is over. You must trust me,” Hermann urged. Newt shook his head vigorously, keening.

“I _do_ trust you man, that’s the point. I’m the biologist here, right? I know what – what I’m doing, you gotta help me, no-one else will help me,” Newt urged.

“Newton, I can’t -”

“Hermann stop it, I know you can-”

“Listen to me-”

“My brain is literally exploding here, I need to Drift or I’m going to die, Hermann.”

“That’s not true, you have no evidence to-”

“You know, I bet you’re enjoying this, huh?” Newt spat suddenly, a vicious edge knifing into his voice, “You just – you wanna see me suffer as much as they do, right? For what I did?” Newt’s following sobs told Hermann that that particular outburst had less to do with Hermann’s own opinions, and more to do with the self-loathing that was painted clearly on Newt’s face. He composed himself.

“You’re angry and in pain. When you come round, you’ll regret it,” Hermann said.

“I already regret it,” Newt said. Hermann was sure it wasn’t the outburst he regretted. “You’re such an asshole,” Newt spat, “If you cared so damn much, you’d help me.”

“I _am_ helping you, you idiot,” Hermann said, temper flaring. He took a deep breath. He couldn’t get angry, it wasn’t Newt’s fault. Pain does something to the instinctive, lizard part of the human brain that lashes out and screams at the dying of the light. It makes us fighters, as a race, Hermann pondered, but it also makes us completely terrible to those who care.

Newt made a frustrated, angry sound in the back of his throat but a shudder passed through him, cutting the sound in half.

That was when Hermann saw the blood. It was dripping slowly from Newt’s ear, trickling sluggishly into his hair.

Hermann’s stomach flipped but he tried to keep his expression neutral, for Newt’s sake. He gestured to the guard and then back at the bloodied ear, thankful that Newt’s eyes were screwed closed. The guard craned his neck, taking a look and then, with a short nod, stuck his head out of the room, calling a nurse.

Hermann took out a handkerchief. Despite what people thought of him, he hadn’t always carried handkerchiefs. It was actually Newt’s influence that had created that particular habit, ever since he had handed him a cloth to wipe his mouth after their first Drift together. Hermann wasn’t sure if it was the un-Newt-like practicality of it or the Ghost Drift that had rubbed off on him, but either way, they did come in handy.

He gently wiped the blood away. Newt flinched back, tossing his head.

“What are you doing?” He looked panicked, achingly suspicious.

“I thought you said you trusted me,” Hermann said. It was a dirty trick and he knew it, but they had both played dirty in arguments over the years. Newt scowled but a whimper interrupted the venom in the stare.

“Hermann,” Newt said softly, “I know I gotta do this but I don’t think I’m strong enough, man.”

“If you Drift again with Alice, they’ll return, Newt, you know that. You have to hold on.” More blood was dripping from Newt’s ear and his eyes looked red. He deserved a break more than anyone else in the human race, Hermann thought, and yet he’s still suffering. It wasn’t fair but, then, the apocalypse never was.

Newt was silent for a long moment and it was unnerving, He stared at his hands as they rattled the cuffs with tremors, looking at them as if they weren’t his own. A disgusted expression crossed his face before he closed his eyes tight.

“Newton-” Hermann didn’t get to finish his sentence before a nurse swept in, taking over the staunching of blood and forcing Hermann back a few steps. Newt didn’t even flinch at the new touch, his body locked in pain, in a still kind of resignation that Hermann instantly hated.

He watched the nurse check Newt’s ear, only to inform Hermann that it wasn’t serious before they left. Hermann couldn’t help but feel bitter about that. The least they could do is to run some tests to make sure, but he supposed Dr Linda was right. There was no reason to call an emergency at every incident – Newt seemed to be having incidents every couple of hours.

Hermann spent the next half an hour listening to the rapid, irritating beeps of the heart rate monitor, sure that Newt had lapsed into silence for the rest of the day now. It was rare now for him to start speaking again after he’d gone quiet. To Hermann’s surprise, however, Newt opened his eyes, blinking sluggishly at him. His expression was unreadable. There was a distant, unidentifiable kind of pain in them that made Hermann sit up, his undivided attention on his friend. Eventually, Newt spoke, his voice raw.

“I didn’t wanna Drift, I swear,” Newt said quietly. He winced, drawing into himself, hands scrambling in the sheet as a pang of pain flared in his head. Hermann placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, squeezing lightly.

“I didn’t even want the stupid brain. But one day I woke up and it was in my room and all my clothes were wet, like I’d been out in the rain and I… I tried freaking out but… I dunno, once they have a hold on you man, it’s like…” Newt thought hard for a moment, “You know when you’re about to fall asleep and you get that little jolt?”

“A hypnic jerk,” Hermann supplied.

“Y-you’re a jerk,” Newt said immediately and Hermann was startled into a chuckle. It was a reflexive joke, one that he’d heard Newt make before, but the familiarity of it made him smile nonetheless.

“It’s like that,” Newt continued, “You know when you can feel your body sort of twitch and you wake up to realise you’ve moved, even though like… you never consciously did it? It’s like that but all the time. Like, you know you’ve moved but you can’t stop it.” His voice sounded weak and watery, his gaze downcast. Hermann squeezed his shoulder again firmly.

“Every night they'd make me just sit in front of her and Drift and… it sucked. It sucked so much but then… it got to years and I dunno, I figured this was it. This was just me, now, like seven years in and I still hated it so much. And I tried everything, I tried breaking the Pons, I tried getting too drunk to use it… They never let me see you, but I even tried emailing you to just come over and get rid of her but I always woke up with them all deleted, you know? I even started treating it like a person. How lame is that? I gave her a name, I figured we might as well get cosy. It wasn’t her fault, the Precursors were using her brain too.”

Hermann had never considered the thing in the tank as particularly sentient, had never looked at it with the kind of annoying sympathy that Newt held for almost all things. To Hermann, that brain had spent the last ten years torturing his best friend into submission. He never wanted to see it again.

“You know what the worst thing was?” Newt said and there was a horrible, utterly false levity in his voice that made Hermann want to cringe back, “I enjoyed it. Sometimes I just hated the days so much, being under their control all the time… it was still a rush to Drift like that. And sometimes I just wanted it so much, to just forget everything, it felt so good to have that rush and not think about anything and…”

Newt was crying now. The gasping heaves were so sharp that they sounded painful. Hermann leaned forward, putting some of his weight over Newt’s in a semi-resemblance of a hug, even from the awkward angle. Newt, however, was inconsolable, sobbing even harder at the contact.

“I’m sorry,” Newt coughed out, “It just hurt so much, I just wanted it to stop. And I let them do it! I let them do it because I was so… so fucking pathetic, I’d have done anything just to stop them being in my head for two minutes. I’m so weak, I couldn’t even-”

The deep, sour self-loathing behind the words was the last straw for Hermann.

“Stop it. Newt, you’re not weak for needing that. The Precursors are intelligent, they know what Drifting does. They are to blame for that, not you. Whether you found relief or pleasure, or anything else, in the Drift is irrelevant, you did what you had to in order to stay sane. To survive,” Hermann kept his voice as firm and strong as he could, “You were incredibly brave, Newton. To fight them for so long… you were so brave.”

He didn’t even realise he was running a hand through Newt’s hair until Newt’s sobs began to quiet. Newt was still making pained whimpers every few seconds, shivers running up and down his frame, and he was still sweating profusely, but the wet shudder in his ribcage was dying down at least. He had tucked his head into Hermann’s shoulder, leaving a wet patch of tears on Hermann’s blazer. Newt had been so thoroughly carved out, so totally opened to the air like the rotting insides of a tree, that Hermann needed to at least try to fill in some of the gaps in his best friend’s mind. Certainty, fact, proof, for once these were things he couldn’t give to Newt, but he could give him honesty. It was the one constant that still remained. 

“Listen to me Newton,” Hermann whispered into Newt’s hair. He ignored the limp greasiness in favour of reminding himself that Newt’s very particular, comforting scent was back in his life after so long. “You’ve been through so many Drifts and you were never prepared for any of this. Your exposure is unprecedented, and I do not need to explain to you what such changes in brain chemistry can do. So there will be side effects, and the withdrawal period is uncertain, yes. But do not believe you are weak, Newton Geiszler. You can do this. You can.”                

Newton was so quiet that, if not for the tremors coursing through his body, Hermann would have thought he was asleep. Newt’s hand reached up and threaded into Hermann’s shirt, clinging on like the first time he had Drifted with the Kaiju. Hermann wished he could know for even a second what Newt was thinking and, more importantly, how he could fix whatever awful thing he was no doubt fixating on.

Eventually Newt drew back, looking nauseous and shaken, but attempting to smile nonetheless.

“I guess… I guess I wouldn’t be a rock star without withdrawing from s-something, sometime, right?” he said quietly. Hermann tried to look disapproving at that, but it was hard when a smile was tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“I’m gonna be the most rock star of all rock stars after this,” Newt said, his rock star status taking a sincere dip in credibility when he yawned sleepily a second later.

“I'm sure,” Hermann agreed noncommittally. It wasn’t long after that that Newt gave up to sleep, sheer exhaustion getting the better of him.

 

* * *

 

Newt awoke with the sickening knowledge that something was wrong. His body still hurt, it wasn’t _fair_ , but that was par for the course at this stage. As it stood, there were more important things to be worried about. The hairs on the back of neck were stood up, his breathing was already shallow with panic and  - and there was something else in the room with them.

He flicked his gaze to Hermann, who was half dozing in his chair, and the guard who was looking bored by the door.

Couldn’t either of them see that they weren’t alone in here?

Newt didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to see it, but he could already feel its eyes on him from the corner of the room. It was stood, he knew, silently, watching him, its spindly limbs hung loosely as its soulless black eyes followed his every movement. _This isn’t possible,_ he tried to tell himself. He knew that, he knew this was insane, that there was no way they were here but that didn’t change the fact that he could see the slender, disjointed shadow in his peripheral vision.

“H-Hermann,” he whispered. He didn’t dare raise his voice. The creature, the _Precursor_ , in the corner of the room tilted its head at the sound and Newt felt the motion more than saw it. He didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to see it. He didn’t want it to –

“Hermann,” he said, a little louder. He was going to throw up, he was sure of it. He’d never felt fear like this with the whole of his brain, never spent a moment out of the Precursor’s control where there was this much terror singing though his veins. He desperately wanted to run, but the restraints at his wrists were stopping him, and he couldn’t help the panicked tugs that were starting to make his wrists bleed.

Hermann blearily opened his eyes and immediately saw the blood on Newt’s wrists, the terrified widening of his eyes. He sat up urgently.

“Newton? What’s wrong, what’s the matter?”

Newt tried to get words out but Hermann’s intervention had made everything so much worse. The Precursor was watching both of them now. Its intent gaze was taking them in with an interest that sent nausea rolling through Newt’s entire body.

“N-no,” he stammered, still unable to face the creature as it appraised them, “No, not him. Y-you can have me but you’re crazy if -”

“Newt, who are you speaking to?” Hermann said. Newt swallowed the lump in his throat and, screwing his courage to the last bastion of strength he had, faced the corner of the room.

The Precursor stood brazenly in the light, the hunch of its shoulders making it no less tall, no less significant in the stark whiteness of the infirmary.  Newt whimpered, trying to draw himself up the bed but it was no use with the restraints holding him down.

“No, no, please,” he heard himself beg but he was past inhabiting his own body, that was just a dream he once had, now he was just empty, rentable space. He was pretty sure he was chattering gibberish but all he knew was that the Precursor wasn’t just looking at him now – it was looking at Hermann. It was looking Hermann dead in the eye and why wasn’t Hermann even reacting? Why was he staring into the corner as if he couldn’t see the being right there in front of him?

“Hermann, I don’t know what – I can’t – It’s _right there,_ it’s just _staring_ \- ” Hermann looked from Newt to the corner, and then back to him. His expression deepened and if Newt wasn’t slowly collapsing into hyperventilation, he might have been concerned at the amount of worry in Hermann’s face.

“Newt,” Hermann said softly, “There’s nothing there.”

Newt barely had time to process that before the Precursor cocked its head, the closest Newton had ever seen to real, honest, _satisfied_ emotion, and stalked towards him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it out of character for Newt to cry so much and Hermann to hug so much? Maybe? But at the same time, Newt’s legit been hurting for TEN YEARS. He’s going through a lot right now, and Hermann knows that, so they’re quite tender atm, in lots of different ways. Newt’s not “performing” himself as well as usual because he’s not himself, but I feel this will develop as the fic goes on. Lemme know if you disagree/agree!


	11. Through a Glass Darkly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realise I missed a week as I had my dissertation and feature screenplay submission on Tuesday and my final exam on Thursday and it’s been a LOT. The stress has been intense and my head has not been in a writing space at all, so I wanted to wait. However, this will be the last late update - from now on, I only have my internship to worry about so I will be writing a buffer!! Music to everyone’s ears, haha. Chapters WILL be posted every weekend (expect Sunday updates usually) and if I fail that, you're allowed to scold me heavily in the comments. Seriously, the promise has been made now. (I mean, why did I start writing this during finals?? WHY?? That was dumb of me)  
> To make it up to you all, I've posted two chapters tonight. Hope you all had a lovely week!  
> (note on the chapter title: It's originally from the bible but I actually first read it in my favourite novel, A Scanner Darkly, which has also been the focus of my university dissertation!)

“So, I’m hallucinating?” Newt asked dully. Only half of what the surprisingly nice doctor told him actually sunk in. Half of his attention was split towards the corner where the Precursor had since disappeared, leaving a glowing, pulsing stain on the wall. It seemed to be growing ever so slowly towards him. He didn’t want to know what would happen when it got there.

“Substance withdrawal can sometimes trigger hallucinations,” Dr Linda told him levelly. In a way, she kind of reminded him of Hermann. A little bit stern, a bit stuffy and obviously trying to torture him out of him mind in this stupid infirmary. But, he supposed, her heart was in a nice place and that was something. “I think it’s to be expected, as your brain is the most affected area. They shouldn’t last long, but they can be a very dangerous symptom, so we’ll need to keep you under close watch until we’re sure you’re out of the woods.”

Newt gave a lame little chuckle, glancing to the guard at the door. The man hadn’t smiled once since Newt woke up and he looked big enough to block the door with his sheer mass.

“I mean, that’s kind of what’s happening anyway, right?” Newt said.

“I mean, medically,” she clarified, “That’s the only thing that interests me.”

For some reason, that sent a shaft of warmth to Newt’s insides and he tried a smile. Even Hermann, as dedicated as he’d been to Newt’s bedside, was currently out arguing with Ranger Lambert about Newt’s level of threat. Sure, Hermann was defending him, arguing vehemently that there was no way the Precursors were still in Newt’s head, but it still stung a little to think that Newt’s health hadn’t been the first question asked at the Shatterdome.

_Why would it be? You’re a murderer, you tried to end the world. You shouldn’t be here._

The voice in Newt’s head was loud, and most certainly not a hallucination. Newt knew that much. The growing stain on the wall and the hauntingly shrill screams of Kaiju outside the room might well be hallucinations, but this wasn’t. _They_ were real enough.

The doctor didn’t mention Newt’s lapse into silence after that, instead carrying out tests in silence. When she reached to undo the restraint on Newt’s left arm, he flinched back, drawing himself away from her involuntarily. She froze, hands hovering over it. He felt his face heat with an embarrassed blush, forcing out a laugh that sounded high and strangled.

“Sorry, sorry, I just… I don’t think he’s okay with that,” he nodded to the Hulk currently guarding the door, “And… and I don’t want to hurt you, so maybe-” He trailed off, not sure how to finish that sentence. What, keep him locked up? That wasn’t plausible and he knew it. They’d need to unstrap him eventually, even just for the space in the infirmary, but the thought made his stomach roll. The last time his hands were free, he’d tried to kill everyone he’d ever cared about. _Had_ killed some of them. Last time he could move freely, he’d almost strangled Hermann to death. 

“I need to change your IV,” Dr Linda said clearly, but softening to a comforting lilt, “It will be more comfortable for you if I free your arm for a second.” Newt shook his head.

“No, I don’t want – I might hurt you.” The compulsive shake in his arms started up again and he bit back a frustrated groan as a wave of anxiety hit him hard. The doctor met his eyes gently. Newt wanted to burrow under the sheets and never come out again.

“I’m positive that you won’t hurt me, Newton,” she said. She set about unbuckling the strap even as Newt shook his head, but she went slowly, keeping her eyes on his face.

“Breathe, just remember to breathe, Newton.”

Newt gasped in a breath, not having realised that he was tightly holding it, clenching every muscle in his body in an effort to keep a hold on himself. What if the Precursors were just pretending? What if they were waiting to break out, any second now?

“Just a little pinch here.” Newt felt the sting of a needle in the crook of his arm and looked down, surprised to see that his wrist was completely free, cradled only in the doctor’s hand as she put the IV into the underside of his arm. The momentary loss of time between being restrained and being free was disconcerting and he hoped in the depths of his mind that it was just because he was too panicked to notice. He looked at her face as she worked, the concentrated twist of her mouth.

“Don’t nurses normally do this?” Newt asked, suddenly uncomfortable. He wished he didn’t feel so embarrassed about his freak out but with the alien rot growing on the wall beside him, social norms could suck it right now. He was at least going to make chit-chat before he was consumed by hallucinated space mould.

“Yes but we’re a little understaffed right now,” Dr Linda explained, “And I thought you might feel more comfortable with a familiar face, I’ve been treating your case since you came into the infirmary.” Newt frowned. Thinking about it, he couldn’t remember the faces that had been in and out of his room since he’d arrived, the entire period being a mass of pain and confusion. He remembered Hermann, and Ranger Lambert at some point, but not much else.

“Sorry,” he said, ducking his head. She smiled at him, straightening to check the IV bag.

“That’s okay,” she said, “I’ve had worse things done to me by patients. Jaeger pilots have quite literally taken swings at me before, you’re a dream by comparison.” Newt strangled a laugh and she beamed, the professional expression replaced by a glow that made Newton feel almost light headed. He’d forgotten that people could smile like that.

“Is Hermann okay?” Newt asked. The doctor looked at him with a surprised tilt of her head.

“He’s fine, why do you ask?” Newt looked down at his now free hand and then to his other arm, which had wasted even more since the cast had been removed. It was almost laughable that a few months ago he’d almost destroyed the world. Now he could barely lift his own limbs.

“I think… I think I hurt him. At Shao Industries. And… I think he’s doing too much, you know? Like he’s here every day and he looks super tired. I mean, not that Hermann doesn’t always look tired because he’s always just like _tired,_ like grumpy tired, but now he’s sorta… like, sad tired, you know?”

Doctor Linda looked partly amused and partly…something else that Newt couldn’t place. He’d never been so good with reading cues but there was something kind and warm to the way she looked at him that made him want to look away. He didn’t deserve that, after what he’d done.

“He’s fine, he’s worried about you,” she said. Newt made a face.

“Hermann’s always worried about everything,” he retorted. He noted that she didn’t ask him before she placed the strap back around his wrist, but he did notice that it was considerably less tight this time.

“Well,” she said, “if there’s anything the end of the world has taught me, it’s that a person’s ‘everything’ can very easily be just one thing. Things become very clear when all of a sudden you might lose that everything.”

Newt frowned. “What do-”

He was interrupted when the door opened and the guard whipped around, his hand on his gun. Hermann stepped in, shooting a withering look at the guard faster than the man would have been able to pull the weapon from his holster. He looked pale and shaken, his hand gripping his cane tightly. Newt’s stomach twisted with worry.

The doctor’s professionalism fell back into place and she muttered something to Hermann as she passed him, out of earshot, and Hermann nodded distractedly. Dr Linda smiled back at Newt as she left and Hermann settled into his usual seat by Newt’s bedside. Newt took in his drained appearance and could help feeling guilty.

“Hey, er, you okay man?” he asked. Hermann didn’t seem to hear him.

“Earth to Hermann, come in Dr. Gottlieb?” Newt chuckled nervously. Hermann’s attention snapped back to Newt and he blinked like he was seeing him for the first time.

“I’m sorry Newton, what… what did you ask?”

“Are you okay? You’re all…. I dunno, spaced out. What, am I back in lockdown now, or what?”

Hermann frowned at Newt, and the confusion on Hermann’s face made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He really did look out of it. He knew Lambert was concerned about Newt’s freak out, but he didn’t think that it would cause such an argument, not to make Hermann look so… scared. Hermann never backed down from a fight, Newt knew that. This was something else, he was sure of it.

“Lambert,” Newt prompted, “Does he think I’m still, you know, hosting Precursor parties in my head?” Hermann shook his head.

“No, no it’s nothing. I told him, you’re perfectly yourself.” Newt snorted at that. He didn’t feel like himself. He felt like Newton Geiszler had been pulled out of his head and twisted through a pencil sharpener, shaving off all the things he used to know about himself and leaving him with something sharp and bare. He felt like there was a pit in his stomach that wouldn’t close. He resolved _not_ to tell Hermann that.

“You sure? Seriously Hermann, you look ill. Like I just left a Kaiju organ in our fridge ill.”

“I’m perfectly fine, Dr Geiszler,” Hermann snapped. And just like that, Newt felt closed out; shut down. He wasn’t Newt, he wasn’t even Newton. This was evidently PPDC business and he wasn’t invited. He ducked his head and glanced over at the corner. The rotting stain on the wall had finally broken through the plaster and brickwork and torn a hole in the fabric of his reality. The Anteverse sprawled behind it. Kaiju twisted in the blue, the screams and screeches almost unbearable. Fear and fascination gave way to shame in his chest and he dug his nails into his palms. _It’s just a hallucination._

Hermann looked bashful too, now, looking down at where his hands folded over his cane. They were still shaking. For the first time since he’d been freed of the Precursors, Newt felt far away from Hermann, the remnants of the Drift feeling cold and cloudy. Something was wrong. Something was really wrong.

They spent the rest of the evening in silence; Hermann staring intently at the wall, and Newton staring at the corner, into the swirling chasm of the Anteverse.


	12. A Bluff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter picks up from the last chapter a little, in Hermann’s perspective. I didn’t want to combine the two chapters as I felt the story was better told in two separated perspectives, I hope you all agree. Also, FINALLY, Newt will be leaving the infirmary next week!

Newton’s hallucinations and re-awakening fever broke within the next week and Hermann could finally, finally breathe. From the scans, Newt’s brain was beginning to stabilise itself, at least physically, and the images of Kaiju and Precursors that sent him screaming into fits of terror were at last beginning to subside.

Hermann wished he could say the same for himself.

The first time it happened, he’d been sure it was Ghost Drift from Newton’s own hallucinogenic distress. That was the only possible solution. But the event hadn’t felt like Newton, there was none of the skittish uncertainty or resolute stubbornness that came with it, just cold and fear and an image so real that Hermann hadn’t dared to tell anybody about it just yet. He wasn’t the one in danger here, Newt was, and Newt needed to be the focus.

It had happened after his fight with Lambert a week ago. He was sure that Newt had noticed the shake in his hand when he’d entered the infirmary again, and he’d regretted snapping at him. Even when weak and terrified, Newt still tried to help and all Hermann had done was throw it back in his face. They’d been silent the whole night, Newt staring off at something Hermann couldn’t see and didn’t dare ask about.

Lambert had been assertive, but there had been an underlying concern that Hermann appreciated. He’d assured the Ranger that Newt was simply experiencing withdrawal symptoms, of which included hallucinations, and Lambert had agreed to leave the matter alone provided the doctor ran more tests.

Hermann had noticed it on his way back to Newt’s room, the realisation freezing him in the long, empty corridor leading back to the infirmary. Except, it no longer looked like that same corridor. It looked very much like the one that led back to their lab. To anyone who’d never lived at a Shatterdome, all the corridors looked the same but Hermann knew the warren of this Dome better than anyone. More than the short metal passage that had led to his own room, this one had always felt like the route back home. The instinct to follow it back to the lab was so strong that Hermann almost moved but then stopped, remembering. He hadn’t been heading to the lab. He’d been heading to the infirmary.

He looked around, fear swelling in his gut. How had he arrived here? One moment, he was in one place and now he was here.

A door to his right swept open and he jumped, jarring his leg with a hiss. A familiar, stomach churning glow came from inside the now-open storage room. Through the open door, Hermann could see her. Alice. The tank was incongruous with the stacks of spare parts on shelves and the odd labelled boxes, in what looked suspiciously like Newt’s handwriting. Hermann knew it was illogical, impossible even, but he could _feel_ the Precursors watching him, feel the Kaiju sensing him through the fragment of itself in that godforsaken tank.  

_This isn’t happening._

He jerked out of the hallucination so fast that he staggered back, his bad leg throbbing. Hermann blinked rapidly, taking in his surroundings and finding himself back in the corridor leading to the infirmary. Nothing had changed, he was still alone and, besides his own heavy breathing, there was only the slight hum of the Shatterdome around him. He reached a shaking hand to his eyes, rubbing them hard.

“It’s just Ghost Drift, Hermann, nothing you haven’t dealt with before,” he told himself. He wished he believed it. He wished it had felt anything like Newt’s mind, but Newt’s mind was still a confused hive of furious bees, a thousand thoughts whizzing too fast for Hermann to understand or feel able to be close to for too long. Despite the Drift, he wasn’t able to use the connection to help Newt; that would only come with time. He tried to steady himself as he walked back towards the infirmary, every sound and movement amplified before he got back to Newt’s room. He just hoped Newt wouldn’t notice the shaking by the time he got there.

 

* * *

 

Hermann’s own hallucinations had thinned, spreading themselves out into his nightmares and inconvenient, incomplete images by the time Newton’s had completely gone. He still felt uneasy, his hypothesis that it was not Ghost Drift becoming more likely as Newt improved, but Hermann still couldn’t bring himself to tell Newt, or anyone else, about it. He knew he’d have to say something if it persisted, he had a doctorate to prove the fact that he wasn’t an idiot, but there were enough factors that needed to be ruled out before anything needed to be done. He was a scientist; he wasn’t of use without a workable hypothesis. He wasn’t too proud to realise that he was a prime candidate for post-traumatic stress, and he also knew that he’d barely slept for more than a few hours a night for months now. He had a laundry list of things he would need to disprove before he worried about whatever this thing was.

Newt, on the other hand, was a more immediate problem. He’d officially been discharged yesterday but had yet to be moved from his room in the infirmary due to… housing disagreements.

“He is not being locked away in another cell like an animal,” Hermann scowled at Nate, wishing not for the first time that he didn’t find himself butting heads quite so often with the Ranger. Arguing with Lambert had become an unfortunately frequent task in Hermann’s schedule. He liked to think that Stacker Pentecost would have been more reasonable but he knew that, if Stacker had still been here, there would be no arguments and certainly no compromises. Stacker would have ordered, Hermann would have obeyed. As it was, he found himself raising his voice higher and higher as he fought yet another battle with Nate and, this time, Jake, who had been in Nate’s office when Hermann had arrived.

Hermann had received Newton’s new “housing information” on a formal looking email, which was frankly insulting, with the insinuation that he was being told due to medical courtesy. In other words, Hermann surmised, he wasn’t to argue. Unfortunately for PPDC planning, Hermann was better at arguing than anyone he knew, except maybe Newton. However, true to form, he’d fight with Dr Geiszler about that as well.

“It’s not a cell, it’s essentially small apartment. It has a bedroom and a bathroom, and it’s much bigger than-”

“Than the chair you had him tied to?” Hermann interrupted.

“Than a cell,” Nate pressed.

“Oh good, so he can stretch his legs while being under lock and key in a windowless room for all hours of the day,” Hermann spat, “With, may I add, armed guards at the door.” He pulled out his tablet and read from the email.

“Assigned guards will also be on shift and restraining measurements in place for an indeterminate period to monitor the subject during night rotation,” Hermann read, “The _subject_? You’re going to restrain him while he _sleeps_? Please, why not leash him while you’re at it?”

“Listen, Hermann, you have to try and see this from my perspective. Doctor Geiszler is still a possible threat, a _huge_ threat to the Shatterdome. You know this, it’s not like I can just let him walk around, there has to be some kind of measures in place,” Nate said. He turned to Jake. “Jake, back me up here.”

Hermann sent a cold look at Jake, who looked just about ready to slink off somewhere less vitriolic.

“I don’t think the cell, sorry _apartment_ ,” he amended as Jake shot him a look, “is that bad of an idea. Just till we get an idea of what’s what, right?” Hermann scowled. He tried to imagine Newt, who still wore sci-fi pyjamas like a child, sleeping with an armed guard not three feet away. Tried to imagine him waking up, screaming, only to find himself restrained and surrounded, weapons trained on him. It was so entirely wrong that it sent shivers up and down Hermann’s spine.

“Fine,” he said, “If you think someone ought to watch him, I’ll watch him.” Two mouths simultaneously dropped open, the other men staring at Hermann incredulously.

“That’s not – that’s not possible, it’s too much of a risk,” Nate managed to say eventually, “I understand your concern Hermann but there’s simply no way that’s going to happen. Newt needs to be kept under armed surveillance, you’d be massively putting yourself at risk and I won’t allow it.”

“He doesn’t need armed surveillance, there’s nothing _wrong_ with him. He’s himself; I know this and I believe that you know this too. Newton would not hurt me,” Hermann argued.

“I mean, he kind of _did_ ,” Jake pointed out, “At Shao Industries.” Hermann straightened, hand flying up involuntarily to play with his collar, as if to hide the now completely faded bruising. He’d worn tight collared shirts since Newton had returned anyway, to hide the marred skin on his neck, but he still caught Newt staring at it guiltily sometimes.

“ _They_ were in control, not Newt. He needs someone who’s going to help him, he will never recovery if you treat him like he’s a bomb about to go off. He’s a human being, not an explosive.”

Nate shook his head and made to leave. “I’m sorry Hermann, but I can’t risk your safety like that. Newt is going into confinement and that’s it,” he said. Jake made a face at the tone but shrugged at Hermann in an apologetic manner. Apology or not, however, he didn’t speak up to the contrary. Hermann steeled himself and did what he always did in arguments with Newt. He anted up.

“Then I would like to tender my resignation,” Hermann said clearly. Nate stopped, turning to look at him with a similar incredulous look as before. “If you want to launch an attack on the Precursors, I refuse to be a part of it while you continue to treat an innocent man like an animal, or worse. I joined the PPDC to put science to good work, not to torture and break the people that we are meant to be saving the world for.”

“Doctor Geiszler nearly ended that world not so long ago, if you remember,” Nate said coolly.

“I imagine my notice will take two weeks to process but I can leave immediately, if it saves time,” Hermann replied. He could almost hear Newt’s voice telling him how awesome his bluff was, and he tried to ignore it in favour of maintaining his poker face. Newt’s sanity, possibly his life, depended on Nate’s decision. Newt could never be a person again, would never heal, locked in a cell for the rest of his days. Newt had spent long enough being caged and controlled.

Nate scrutinised Hermann’s expression for a long time, the tension in the room almost unbearable. Finally, he rolled his eyes and threw his arms out in an exhausted shrug.

“For a start, blackmailing the PPDC is going to go on your record,” he snapped, “And if we do this, we do it by the books. I’ll get you and Geiszler an assigned apartment but it’s still going to have security at the door, no arguments. You report every day with his progress and you follow a safety protocol day and night. And if there are _any_ incidents, we move him to the original arrangements.”

“I take it by apartment, you mean there will be a kitchen?” Hermann asked blandly. Nate narrowed his eyes.

“Don’t push it Hermann, I already should _not_ be doing this,” Nate retorted, “I mean it, if anything happens, I can’t protect either of you.” Hermann nodded soberly, waiting for Nate to leave before letting his shoulders sag and his weight fall onto his cane with relief. He head Jake whistle from behind him.

“Would you really have quit?” he asked Hermann eventually. Hermann shot him a sardonic look.

“Of course not. Although Newton told me once that I have a remarkable poker face.”

“Oh yeah? How’d he figure that one out?”

“I may have once convinced him to turn down his music for a week or else I’d relieve myself in one of the Kaiju tanks. I don’t know why, but he absolutely believed I’d do it.”

Jake burst into laughter behind him and Hermann tried to convince himself not to collapse from sheer relief. He tried not to think of everything he’d already done to keep Newt safe. He tried even harder to ignore what he’d still be willing to do.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Sorry again for the lateness, let me know what you think and have a great week!


	13. A Shared Start

Newt’s hands were cuffed behind him as they were led from the infirmary to their new quarters. Hermann gritted his teeth to prevent himself from protesting that, particularly as he noted the way Newt limped and swayed to stay upright as he walked. Dr Linda assured him that Newt was ready for the move, but that didn’t stop Hermann from being concerned. Newt looked positively nauseated as he moved through the metal belly of the Shatterdome, two armed guards behind them as they walked. A few Shatterdome personnel passed them on the way, edging to the sides of the corridors to let them pass. All of them stared. Newt looked away every time but Hermann knew that he caught the suspicion and anger in their eyes. It wasn’t like it was particularly well masked.

Newt had been quiet since he’d been told the relocation plan. It was unnerving. Newt hadn’t protested the move but had looked up sharply when Hermann told him that he would be rooming with him for the foreseeable future.  

“It was either that, or an armed cell,” Hermann had explained, almost apologetically. Newt screwed his nose up at that.

“An armed cell would be safer,” Newt had muttered and it was then that Hermann realised his miscalculation. Two and two had not, yet again, added to four. This wasn’t about sharing a room with Hermann. At least, it wasn’t disgust or reluctance at the idea.

“You won’t hurt me.” Hermann had assured him, “I’m positive that it will be beneficial to your recovery if you have some semblance of normalcy, which hopefully an adequate living space will contribute to.” Newt had looked like he was about to argue with that and self-hatred filled the stale remnants of the Ghost Drift with such vehemence that Hermann almost staggered. _Like I deserve it,_ he thought and immediately recognised it as Newt’s thought. He shot Newt a hard look, but allowed the moment to pass when Newt looked away, a deep blush reddening his cheeks.

Newt had allowed the doctor to remove the restraints and hadn’t flinched when the guards re-cuffed them behind his back. Instead, he merely watched them dispassionately, his focus not entirely in the moment. Hermann watched them carefully, eying the cuffs with distaste before falling into step next to the biologist as they were led further into the depths of the Dome. He tensed as they passed the cells where Newton had been kept while he was still infected by the Precursors but Newt didn’t so much as glance at them, instead he kept his shoulders hunched and his gaze firmly on the floor.

They were far away from almost everything else in the Dome and certainly far from sunlight once they reached their new quarters. One of the guards, a young man whom Hermann vaguely recognised from the most recent batch of recruits, removed Newt’s cuffs with a wary look as the other guard handed Hermann a gym bag emblazoned with the PPDC logo.

“The doctor also put his medication in there,” the guard said, shooting a distasteful look at Newt, who looked away quickly. Hermann scowled.

“Yes, thank you.” He took the bag and, just to irk the guard, handed it to Newton with a little bit more force than perhaps necessary. The soldier narrowed his eyes and looked like he was about to argue, but Hermann turned quickly and keyed in the access code to their quarters. He gestured for Newt to scurry in before him and then shot another spiteful look at the stationed men before following.

There was no entranceway as there was to Hermann’s own quarters, rather the door led straight to a very small kitchenette, with an adjoining recreation space that was similarly tiny. The inclusion of the kitchen made Hermann smile all the same, satisfied with his ability to barter Nate’s conditions down. The makeshift living room had a small sofa and a beat-up, retro looking television. Two more doors led off from behind the sofa, presumably to bedrooms, and another door to the bathroom at the left hand of the living room. Everything was depressingly coated in darkness as they entered, but Newt didn’t seem to mind, heading straight in and flinging his bag onto the floor by the sofa. He flopped down on the old cushions, immediately bending forward to cradle his head into his hands.

Ignoring the uncharacteristic silence for now, Hermann found the light switch for the kitchen, the meagre bulb flickering with dim light as he flicked it on. He opened a few of the drawers and cupboards, noting pairs of all the essentials moulded in white plastic. No china and, from what Hermann could see, no sharp utensils anywhere. Hermann had been warned by both the doctor and PPDC security to keep sharp items away from Newt at all times. The thought made him feel a bit sick. The idea of Newt hurting anyone, or himself, made Hermann’s skin crawl even more when he finally admitted that it probably was a good idea to keep dangerous items from Newt for the time being. He’d felt the waves of self-loathing rolling off of him in the infirmary and even now as he sat on the sofa of their new life, Hermann could practically hear the sounds of his heart breaking. He didn’t want to pry into the Drift, but common sense told him that Newt had to be worried about the big question: What happens now?

Closing the drawer he’d been staring into for a little too long now, Hermann made his way into the living room, opening the doors and finding, as expected, two very plain bedrooms. The room on the left was instantly identifiable as his, considering that there were a few more sparse luxuries in it, such as a bedside lamp and a long mirror on the wardrobe. The lack of comforts in Newt’s room inflamed his indignation on Newt’s behalf, but he supposed that any glass was out of the question.

Newt still didn’t move when Hermann returned to the living room. For a moment Hermann wasn’t sure what to do, and he hovered awkwardly by the sofa. The increasing frequency that Newt seemed to zone out, becoming more still than he had ever held himself in the years that Hermann knew him, was disconcerting. The remnants of the Drift got hazy in these moments, flickering like a poor radio signal, and the implications of Newt being left alone with his own mind was not a savoury thought.

“I’ll make dinner for us,” Hermann said eventually. Newt looked up at that, his expression dull and joyless. Hermann knew that whatever he was about to say, he was going to hate it.

“I’m such a waste of space,” Newt responded. The statement, out of the blue, was jarring and Hermann felt a jolt in his chest. He sat down quickly, folding his cane under his arm as he did.

“You’re not a waste of space, Newton,” Hermann insisted firmly, “I don’t know where-”

“The way everyone was looking at me… and you being here, it’s not fair, you should be out being a world-saving rock star, signing women’s chests and stuff, not stuck here with me,” Newt argued, “I should be in a cell, everyone’d be safer if I was. And you wouldn’t be-”

“As annoyingly dense as you might be as a scholar Newton, I thought I made it clear enough to understand that I argued to be here,” Hermann said, trying to keep his tone light so there was no mistaking the teasing, “And, besides, you know as well as I do that there would be no signing of chests, thank you very much.” Newt huffed an utterly forced laugh at that, twisting his hands in his lap. He was biting his lip, a habit that Hermann couldn’t remember him having when they’d first met.

“You can’t stay here forever though man, that’d be like… crazy boring for you. It’s kind of… delaying the inevitable, right?” There was no anxiety in Newt’s voice, just a tired resignation. An unwanted image crept through the Drift, of Newt lying in bed at Shao Industries, wordlessly intoning to the ceiling as the Precursors danced in his mind. _No-one is coming for you. Nobody cares._

Hermann tried not to flinch at the memory, real enough now for him as it was for Newton.

“We’ll take it one day at a time,” Hermann said, “I believe that’s the best way to go about this. And I sincerely doubt that living with _you_ , of all people, will be boring. I’ll be lucky if you don’t blow anything up in the first day.” Immediately he regretted his choice of phrasing but if Newt noticed it, he didn’t say anything. An awkward second’s silence passed before Hermann stood and made his way to the kitchen.

“Unpack your bag, your room is the one on the right” he suggested, “I’ll make dinner.” He felt a pang of sympathy knowing that Newt’s personal belongings could be now counted on two hands, as most of his possessions had been ransacked when the PPDC had smashed in the front door of his Shao Industries home. They’d found numerous damning items of evidence and they’d been filed away to some unnamed storage facility at an undisclosed location. Newt was never going to stand trial for the crimes of course, there was no way to legally punish a man who’d been under the control of extra-terrestrial beings, but the evidence was kept all the same. It hurt all the more that some of Newt’s Kaiju paraphernalia, items which Hermann recognised as harmless sketches or models from Newt’s days at the Dome had also been filed away as evidence too.

All that was left was a handful of clothes, too many hair products for Newt’s artlessly dishevelled look and, probably most painfully, a collection of letters that Hermann had recognised from a mile away. He’d kept the responding letters himself, the correspondence that he had kept with Newt when they both so much younger. There was a heart-breaking irony in how well-read Newt’s copies were. For all that he’d been alone these past years, he’d kept everything Hermann had said to him. He wondered how many times Newt’s re-reading of those letters had corresponded with his own; if he’d been reading Newt’s replies as Newt had read his questions. It hurt to know that a bunch of dispassionate PPDC eyes had now perused those letters, looking for God only knew what. They hadn’t been filed as evidence, mentioning nothing of the Kaiju, but Hermann hadn’t felt relieved when they were handed back to him by an analyst with sad, knowing eyes. He’d stored them away with his own matching letters and hadn’t mentioned them. Newt, in turn, hadn’t asked for them.

He heard Newt move after a long moment of sitting in thought, and Hermann could finally lose himself in cooking. Despite Newton’s nonsensical notions about biologists being “trained to cook”, Hermann considered himself much more capable in the kitchen, if Newt’s awful, usually pre-frozen Tupperware dinners had been anything to go by during the war. Hermann actually enjoyed cooking and, when he got the time, found it stress relieving in its mathematical accuracy. The tiny kitchen with which he had to work with was a little frustrating, as was the frankly infuriating lack of knives, but he made do as best he could. By the time Newt had finished with his unpacking, and whatever else he’d done to avoid Hermann given his sparse collection of possessions, Hermann was almost done with a pasta dish that he knew Newt had always been envious of. Envious meaning he would frequently steal it if Hermann ever brought it to the lab as lunch.

Newt had changed out of the PPDC issued clothes he’d been dressed in and was now in a beaten-up jumper that may once have made reference to the Twilight Zone and some sweatpants. In his own clothes, Newton looked even more underweight than he had in the infirmary and Hermann felt like a concerned mother when he stealthily added more to Newton’s portion of pasta. He looked a little unlike himself with his overgrown scruff of stubble, and Hermann made a mental note to get it cut for him. He also noticed with little surprise that Newt’s arms were covered, his tattoos hidden beneath the navy fabric. He knew from the way that Newt was tugging at the sleeves as he entered the kitchen that it was bothering him, but the way he snatched his hands away at Hermann’s stare told him that it wasn’t a subject that would be discussed any time soon.

“Oh my God, that smells amazing dude,” Newt said, peering at the plates on the counter with more enthusiasm than Hermann really deemed necessary, “Holy shit, that’s hibernation level of carbs. I didn’t even know you did carbs, I thought you survived on like, Brussel sprouts or something.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’ve cooked this for you before.”

“Yeah, when I asked, you never brought this stuff for lunch,” Newt whined.

“I did bring this for lunch Newton, you just always stole it,” Hermann snapped, handing Newt a plate and nodding to the sofa. In a more helpful gesture than Hermann would give him credit for, Newt also took the other plate and brought it with him as he sat down, Hermann perching next to him. He didn’t fail to notice the way that Newt leaned back further on the sofa, which pressed his leg lightly against Hermann’s. It was barely a brush of contact but Newt looked at Hermann as if seeking permission, his eyes uncertain and desperate in equal measures. Hermann didn’t move away.

“I guess that’d explain a lot, I did wonder how the food magically got in the fridge overnight,” Newt said. His tone told Hermann that he didn’t need to remind him that Hermann’s name had been labelled on every single one of those tubs.

Newt made a lewd groaning sound as he took a bite of the pasta and Hermann rolled his eyes.

“If you weren’t such a math nerd, you could have been a food biologist or something, this stuff is amazing,” Newt said, his mouth full as he spoke.

“Food biology isn’t a real science, Newton,” Hermann sighed. He was pretty sure he’d met someone who majored in it once, but he wasn’t sure.

“It’s probably considered art,” Newt said, gesturing to his plate with a wave of his fork. Hermann scoffed. They fell into silence and Hermann eventually leaned over to pick up the TV remote on the little coffee table, intrigued to see if the television actually worked, considering its age. It flickered into life, the volume turned down low, and Hermann flicked through several Chinese news channels. Newt stiffened next to him, his fork freezing over his plate.

Frowning, Hermann turned off the TV.

“Newton? Are you alright?” Newt blinked, coming back to himself with such a jolt that his plate tipped a little and he had to steady it with his other hand.

“Y-yeah, fine.” Hermann raised an eyebrow.

“Really, it’s good,” Newt insisted, “I just… I kinda half know Mandarin now and I don’t… I don’t really remember learning it, you know? It’s just a bit weird, I guess.” Hermann saw the shake in Newt’s hand intensify, his fork visibly trembling as he lowered his plate. After a few deep, shaky breaths, Newt looked back at Hermann with a weak smile.

“I didn’t really think I’d be kicking back with a TV dinner after the world ended, you know?” he said with a smile that carved a chasm in Hermann’s chest.

“The world didn’t end,” Hermann reminded him. That triggered a little laugh from Newt, as fake as the smile and twice as manic.

“Huh. It didn’t?”

Hermann didn’t really know what to say to that and Newt’s light, careless tone was just a shade too close to his grinning façade at Shao Industries. Hermann hadn’t even considered the possibility of Newton’s ten-year personality still being present, the idea that, even with the Precursors gone, there were some elements of Newt that had eroded away into… this. A smile and a shrug and just a little less compassion than Newt ever used to have.

Newt caught Hermann’s expression and suddenly his face dropped the grin, an apologetic half-smile taking its place that was entirely Newt.

“Sorry, kinda morbid there for a sec,” Newt said, stabbing at his pasta again. Hermann noticed that he didn’t lift the fork to his mouth this time, instead he just re-stabbed at bits of food until Hermann was done with his own meal. Newt nearly jumped out of his seat to clear the plates and immediately set to washing them in the most un-Newt like gesture Hermann had ever witnessed. Newt didn’t clean up. He left things lying around for Hermann to clean up, or he left it for weeks until he finally was forced for need of space to tidy, but he never voluntarily cleaned up. If he’d caught Newt cleaning in the past few years, Hermann thought with a dark humour, he’d have known something was wrong immediately.

“You don’t need to do that,” Hermann said. At any other time, he’d have appreciated the help, and been glad to see Newt take some responsibility, but the un-Newt-ness of it was too much right now. He wanted Newton Geiszler back, messy, uncoordinated and brilliant as he was.

“It’s fine,” Newt shot back too quickly.

“You’ve just come out of the infirmary, you need to rest,” Hermann insisted but Newt continued to wash up as if he hadn’t heard him. Sighing, Hermann approached him, taking the soapy plate from his hands.

“You’re going to hurt yourself if you do too much, you’ve had a long few… You’re not 100% yet,” Hermann said. Newt dipped his head, biting his lip again. When he spoke, it was so quiet that Hermann barely heard him.

“I just want to be useful,” Newt whispered. Hermann’s heart sank in sympathy at the childish quietness of Newt’s admission.

“You can be useful by not keeling over and ending up back in the infirmary,” Hermann chided. He softened a little at Newt’s disappointed expression. “Your usefulness does not solely equate to tasks performed. You’re doing…well.” The praise was a little hard to grit out, so against their usual script as it was, but it was quantifiably true. Newton was putting on a remarkably brave face. Despite his withdrawal, he’d been able to leave the infirmary on his own two feet and the thin mask of smiles and jokes was holding regardless. It worried Hermann to think of when it would come crashing down, but for now Newton was vehemently attempting to draw Hermann’s attention away from his less than ideal state. Hermann was willing to indulge him, for now, at least.

“Jeez Herm, don’t sound so ecstatic about it,” Newt grumbled. His wet hands twisted together in the sink, causing little ripples that he followed with dull eyes.

“Go sit down, Newton,” Hermann pressed, “I will do this. Don’t get used to it, though, I hope you’re as keen to do the dishes in a week’s time.”

Newt huffed a laugh at that. “Only if we buy pink rubber gloves,” he said as he retreated to the sofa, “To go with my image.”

“You _have_ no image, you degenerate.”

 

* * *

 

An hour later and Newt was yawning at the television. His gaze hadn’t been holding on it since he sat down, instead Hermann watched him out of the corner of his eye as he seemed to drop in and out of focus. He’d stare for a few moments at a time at random points of the wall before jerking as if he was being jolted with electric shocks.

Newton had six doctorates to his name. He was, to Hermann’s annoyance, one of the smartest men he’d ever met. He was talented and intelligent in ways that most people would never be. And yet, if Hermann were to ask him, he was sure Newton hadn’t followed a single moment of the simple television re-run.

Hermann wanted to ask Newton where he went, when his mind dropped offline. He wanted to try and find the jigsaw pieces of his scattered friend in the Drift and piece together what he’d lost. For a second he even wanted to put his forehead to Newt’s and try to place where his gaze ended and the hazy rims of his consciousness began. Instead he merely turned off the TV and feigned a yawn, stretching exaggeratedly.

“We should retire,” he announced. Newt blinked hard and looked at him.

“I think I already am, unless you think I’ve got a shot at a job,” Newt responded.

“Very funny,” Hermann deadpanned, standing stiffly. He really did feel tired, his nights by Newt’s bedside totalling an unsatisfactory amount of sleeplessness. Newt grumbled a little under his breath, a familiar response that coaxed a smile out of Hermann, but he stood anyway, scratching once more at his sleeves. He looked infinitely smaller here, so out of place, as if the Dome would simply swallow him whole if he stood still and quiet for enough time. Besides the security, Newt hadn’t complained about Hermann taking the apartment with him and Hermann wondered if it was only going to make Newton feel more uncomfortable. The more he thought about it, the more potent it was that neither of them had ever stayed for more than a few moments in each other’s quarters. Even their shared lab space had been divided. It was already quite miraculous that their close proximity hadn’t sparked a fight, but Newt’s stoic quietness was making it difficult to even converse, much less bicker.

“You…” Hermann cleared his throat, feeling awkward himself, “Er, you may use the washroom first, if you wish.” Newt scoffed at him, but hurried to the bathroom gratefully all the same.

“It’s okay to call it a toilet, Hermann, no-one’s invited the Queen,” Newt jibed.

“You are quite aware that the monarchy-”

“Sorry, can’t hear you, toilet stuff happening,” Newt interrupted and Hermann heard the loud flow of water in the sink as the door slammed shut.

Hermann felt a flare of concern as the door closed. This, he realised, was the first moment that Newt had been truly alone, unobserved, since his arrival at the PPDC. He had the urge to press an ear to the door for just a second, but pushed the feeling down guiltily. Newt wasn’t an infant, he’d be fine. And besides that, he had the right to at least a moment of privacy, no matter what the official PPDC response declared.

The thought didn’t comfort him enough to move from where he was stood awkwardly by the sofa, however. Nervousness dug itself deeper into his stomach as time stretched out, long minutes passing until Newt finally emerged. He made a beeline straight for his room, his head tilted down, but Hermann could still make out the redness around his eyes from where he’d evidently wiped them hastily. Hermann felt a sting of pity and an even sharper stab of guilt.

“I, er, forgot my pills,” Newt mumbled as he passed, and he emerged from his room with a few orange bottles in his hand, heading for the kitchen. Hermann followed him slowly. During the war they had made a silent pact to never mention medications in the lab, despite the top drawers crammed with boxes and orange bottles. Between Hermann’s leg and Newt’s “happy pills”, as he so artlessly described his anti-depressives, along with enough anxiety pills for two scientists whose job it was to save the world, they had a veritable pharmacy. Newt would snap his eyes away from Hermann as he took his, and Hermann would silently count the number of pills Newt took. It was comfortable. Safe, even.

“If you need help with the child proofing-”

“I’ll go ask one of the guards, good idea,” Newt countered immediately.

As Newt laid out his medications on the counter, Hermann found his old habits kicking in, counting the dosage as Newt downed one after the other. Pain medication, anti-seizure pills, an altered dose of his anti-depressives. He didn’t recognise the last bottle; he couldn’t even remember Dr Linda mentioning anything else. He put a hand on Newton’s arm as he was about to take one.

“What is that?” Hermann asked. Newt looked surprised, first at him, and then at the bottle.

“Uh, meds?”

“Yes, I know that, obviously. I don’t recognise the bottle.” Newt raised an eyebrow at that.

“Sorry _mom_ , didn’t know I had to get candy by you, jeez,” He tried to pop a pill, his weak attempt at distraction failing to stop Hermann from frowning hard at him, stilling his hand again.

“Newton.”

“Hermann.”

Hermann tutted. “I’m not doing this to mother you, I’m merely concerned that-”

“I don’t need you to be concerned!” Newt raised his voice but it was still high and wavering, like the tone he used when he knew he was going to lose an argument with Stacker Pentecost. It wasn’t, Hermann was always frustrated to note, a tone he heard often in their arguments. “It’s not a big deal Hermann, okay? I asked for them, and the doc said they’re a good idea.  Don’t get your pants in a twist, dude.”

“My pants are _not_ in a twist, Newton. You can’t request medication like it’s-”

“I can do what I want Hermann, I’m not your pet project okay. I’ve had enough of people telling me what to do, okay? I’ve had ten years of it, so you can just – just back off, okay?”

Newt’s eyes were watery now, his hands shaking around the bottle. His breath was coming out in sharp heaves, tripping over his words and giving Hermann a look like he was frightened he’d drop at any second.

“I just… I don’t wanna hurt you, man,” Newt whimpered. Hermann’s neck itched with phantom fingers. He placed his hand over Newton’s for the briefest of moments, pulling the bottle gently from his grasp.

“You’re not going to hurt me,” Hermann said levelly, and then, because he never learned how to let things go, “Please tell me what these are.”

Newt deflated. His shoulders sagged like they’d only been held up by thin strings which had snapped under the weight of everything.

“They’re sedatives. For when I sleep. Like, if I can’t wake up, then I can’t hurt you, right? And you can lock my door and stuff, and your door, and then… then I can’t get up or… or _out_.”

Hermann wanted to snap at that. Years ago he may have done, may have bitten out that Newt wasn’t, despite his behaviour sometimes, an animal to be caged or locked away. But that was before Newt looked at him, hand wrapped around his neck, like he didn’t know how to be a person again. A puppet with its strings clipped.

“Newton-” He began but Newt simply grabbed the bottle back from him and, with a speed that Hermann couldn’t prevent, dry swallowed two of the pills. Newt, who would complain about swallowing aspirin dry.

“Done, see? It’s fine. It’s fine, let’s just… let’s just go to bed, okay? I don’t wanna argue about it, Hermann,” Newt said. There wasn’t much that Newt didn’t want to argue about. Mac vs PC. Ninjas or pirates. The benefits of nuclear fusion over fission. Newt would argue the sky was green if Hermann said it was blue. Hermann honestly missed it.

“We’re going to talk about this tomorrow, and I want to speak to the doctor, too,” Hermann warned, conceding with a scowl.

“Yessir, whatever,” Newt rolled his eyes.

Hermann hovered awkwardly in the doorway as Newt settled into his room. Newt’s movements were already sluggish and heavy as he got into bed, his eyelids drooping. He looked terrible. His eyes were tired and red, blotchy skin stood against the paleness of his cheeks. The sedatives were already making his vision and thinking disorientated, and Hermann could see the way he struggled with the blanket. Sighing, he crossed the threshold and took it from him, urging him to lie back as he threw the cover over him. Newt smirked sleepily.

“Oh my God, you look _just_ like my mom,” Newt teased.

“Shut up Newton,” Hermann scowled.

“Can we have pancakes for breakfast? I want pancakes.”

“You’re not getting sugar for breakfast and-” He caught the tiredly amused look on Newt’s face and was sure that, if he was less immediately about to pass out, he’d be laughing. Hermann wished he could hear that sound again. He didn’t agree with the sedatives, he wanted to flush all of them down the toilet once he left Newt’s room, but he hated them more for the way it dulled the only spark of laughter in Newt’s eyes.

“Told you… you’re such a mom,” Newt yawned. He was asleep within seconds, drooling onto the pillow like a cartoon character. Hermann wrinkled his nose, part disgust, part endearment. Newt had ruined more than one batch of Hermann’s notes by falling asleep in the lab and drooling on the papers. It was disgusting, honestly, and more than unsanitary, but Hermann couldn’t bring himself to be annoyed right now. It looked like the first proper rest he’d had in some time and, while Hermann still wanted to be rid of the damn sedatives, it was a relief to see him asleep and, for now, safe.

He stepped back into the living room, closing Newt’s door behind him. He considered leaving it unlocked, PPDC agreement be damned, but he considered that Newt was likely out for the night and their arrangement was conditional to the security requirements being met. It would be foolish to jeopardise it now for the sake of a locked door. If Newt needed him, it would only take a tap on their shared wall to wake him, anyway.

He thumbed in the key code to the door, locking it with displeasure before making his way to bed. He didn’t expect the pulse of emotion that hit him. He laid awake for a long time, a lump lodging in his throat until, eventually, a small sob came out of him and he closed his eyes hard against the barrage of emotions. He didn’t know what was Drift and what wasn’t, and he didn’t care. Whatever was Newt’s, he’d realised over ten years ago, was his too, now. Guilt bubbled in his chest, chased swiftly by grief. He didn’t allow tears to spill over, digging nails into his palms. Anger stirred somewhere there too, an aimless, depthless rage that he could never exorcise. The war, the war he had thought was over, had taken Mako. It could still take Newt. And he was _still_ fighting. After years of thinking it was finally, finally over, that hated, _blasted_ war had returned to take the things that Hermann cared about. The only things he still cared about. And worse, there was nothing he could do but keep fighting, to battle to keep the edge from all his sharp points, to keep the metallic tang from his mouth whenever he thought about how alone he could suddenly be, how fragile the world was.

His jaw ached from clenching by the time the tumult of pain abated and he could listen to the silence once more. He closed his eyes, knowing that sleep was going to be hard-won despite how tired he was.

When he woke several hours later, it was to the sound of Newt screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is over-indulgently long but man, I needed this fic this week. Thanks for reading and I'd love to hear what you think! Have a lovely week everyone!


	14. Terrors in the night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so it’s been a rough week: I lost my internship so I’m essentially jobless/accommodation-less by the end of June, so I’ve sorta needed to write this just for a bit of catharsis. Plot is on the way in the next chapter, I promise?? :D

Hermann stumbled out of bed. Pain shot through his leg before he closed his hand on his cane. He felt disorientated as he lurched for the door, the sudden jolt into waking and the screams penetrating the silence made his head spin, and he almost overbalanced as he stumbled to Newt’s door. His legs felt unsteady and the darkness was absolute.

He jumped when he looked into the blackness of the living room and saw a large figure moving towards him.

“Doctor Gottlieb?”

Hermann released a sigh of relief. The guard had heard the screams, of course.

“It’s a nightmare, leave it to me,” he said sharply. The guard faltered.

“Doctor-”

“Please, leave it to me. If I need help, I will call for it.”

He didn’t wait for a response, turning instead to the door and hurriedly unlocking it. Hermann flicked on the light as he stumbled in, ignoring the guard’s protests as he closed the door behind him.

“Newton!”

Newt was flailing in his bed, his movements uncoordinated and sluggish. Whatever sedative effect there was, it clearly wasn’t enough to subdue his fight against the terrors in his dreams. Hermann hadn’t checked the time but Newt’s assurance that the pills would last the night was evidently incorrect. One day Hermann might joke about that, when he wasn’t quite so terrified of the way Newt’s mind was quickly slipping through his fingers. He’d maybe tell Newt how terrible a biologist he is, if he can’t use math to calculate dosage. But, even though he wanted desperately to ignore the fact, Hermann knew Newt would never miscalculate. Not in his right mind.

Hermann hurried to the bedside. Newt’s screams were guttural, like they were being clawed from his stomach and ripped out of him, animalistic and faltering. His voice broke sporadically, tears that made holes in the sounds which gaped and gnawed, pitch changes that tightened Hermann’s chest in sympathy.

He sat, unsure what to do or even where to place his hands.

“Newt, wake up, you must wake up,” Hermann urged. He vaguely knew it was bad to wake someone from a nightmare, but he knew the guard would be waiting just outside and, more importantly, Newt’s expression was breaking Hermann’s heart.

He looked so young that Hermann remembered without a moment’s pause the young man in a Polaroid, stapled to his second letter. Smiling, hair messy and overgrown, a glimmer of the universe behind his glasses like he’d caught the stream of Einstein’s thinking and dug to the core of all the things that made Hermann feel alive. There was never a probability Newton couldn’t confound. But this man… Hermann could barely recognise him. His youth was visible only through the way he resembled a frightened child, whimpering and crying out as if there was a snapping beast at the end of the darkness, biting at his legs to make him cry. He was quivering, mouth opened wide and eyes scrunched tightly as high, choked whistles of fear passed through short, panicked gasps.

Hermann shook Newt’s shoulders and felt something solid connect with his stomach, knocking the air out of him a little. Newt’s flailing arm had caught him and Hermann leaned back in an attempt to avoid another blow.

“Newt, wake up, it’s a dream!” Hermann snapped, but Newt only became more agitated, thrashing harder and suddenly his keening wails became words, garbled as they were.

“I can’t, I can’t do it – I can’t, please don’t make me, please, please,” Newt whimpered. Data argued that heartbreak was unscientific. There was nothing more empirical than the way Hermann’s chest ached to hear Newton Geiszler sound so small.

His hands left Newton’s shoulders, one sliding around his back to cradle him, trapping his shoulders and flailing arms while his other hand cupped the back of Newt’s head, smoothing into his hair.

“No, no, it’s okay Newt, it’s a dream. Please wake up. It’s just a dream.” For all that people considered Hermann a proud man, he was a man who had saved the world more than once. There was no way to win wars without learning that there was a time for pride, and there was a time for humanity. He would never have grasped Newton’s hand, would never have Drifted with him, if he didn’t.

Hermann kept up the litany even as Newt struggled against him and whatever creatures that haunted his dreams. Eventually his struggles weakened and Hermann felt his body relax incrementally against his. Newton quieted after several long moments and, with a relieved slump of his shoulders, Hermann realised he was waking.

He pulled back, hands moving to Newt’s shoulders so that Newt could extricate himself with some degree of dignity. An embarrassed blush was creeping up his neck already and he avoided Hermann’s eyes, ducking his head as he wiped at his cheeks. They were damp with tears.

“H-Hermann?” Newt finally said. It was part question and part confused statement. Hermann felt a tinge of embarrassment to match Newt’s, nudging himself back on the mattress to give him space.

“You were having a nightmare,” he said, by way of explanation. Newt’s eyes snapped up to meet his, looking him over with a wide, shocked expression.

“Oh God… Did, did I hurt you?”

Hermann pursed his lips in vague annoyance. Typical that Newton should bypass his own safety to think about someone else’s.

“No you didn’t hurt me, I’m fine,” Hermann said, “You, on the other hand, were having some kind of night terror.”

“I’m sorry,” Newt said immediately. He looked a little lost, as if he still hadn’t quite worked out where he had woken up. The thought unnerved Hermann. His skin looked translucent, almost inhuman in the way the sickly pallor and sheen of sweat made a waxy mask of his face.

Hermann was about to reply when Newt leaned forward a little, his breath quickening.

“I- I think I’m going to be sick,” Newt gasped.

“That’s alright, if you are then I’ll clean it up,” Hermann said. Normally he’d have left for a bucket or something to place beneath him, but he was too worried to leave Newt on his own right now. The floors were steel, they would clean. Newt, on the other hand, looked like he was going to shake into pieces at any moment and never be reassembled. To Hermann’s credit, Newt leaned into the hand on his shoulder, arching so that his head came forwards.

“Don’t go,” Newt mewled. The thought of leaving to find a receptacle had evidently crossed Newt’s mind too, and the request was less needy and more of a decision between two evils.

“I’m not going to,” Hermann replied firmly. Newt was breathing heavily, keeping his nausea at bay, little tremors working up and down his back. He was muttering something and it took Hermann a second to key into it.

“You’re not there, you’re here. You’re here. They’re not here, _you’re_ here,” Newt was whispering. He sounded utterly unconvinced.

“Newt, where do you think you are?” Hermann asked. Newt’s whispering stuttered and he let out a whine that was entirely involuntary. The uncontrolled sound made Newt tuck further into himself.

“In my dream, I thought,” he cut himself off, and from the workings of his throat Hermann was worried for a second that he really was going to be sick. He rubbed his back soothingly, murmuring platitudes. His leg was starting to ache from the way he was twisted to face Newt but he knew that the worst possible action in their known universe, right now, was to let go of Newton. If he let go, he wasn’t sure he’d get him back again. The thought was little more than unbearable.

“I was on that building,” Newt admitted and suddenly Hermann could see it through the Drift, the memory of standing on the roof, destruction and chaos and Kaiju writhing around him. It was half an unsettling reality, one he hadn’t experienced – one that Newt had experienced _alone_ – but it was also dreamlike and fractured. Crystallised like it had been in Newt’s mind in the Shatterdome cell. Hermann could feel the vibrations in his legs, the wind snapping at his face. And then, without thought, he turned from the battle, walked to the edge of the roof – and stepped off.

Hermann jerked, the vision snapping away into nothingness as his body recoiled.

“I dreamt that I jumped… or they made me jump, I don’t know. It’s all muddled up. Just that they’d won, so it didn’t matter anymore. None of it mattered,” Newt said. He hadn’t reacted to Hermann’s shock, but he surely must have felt it. Deadened darkness was all Hermann could feel on Newt’s side of the Drift, like lead sinking slowly into seeping quicksand.

“But I was happy, you know? Like I was just happy that we’d – _I’d_ – done it. But then I just kept falling and falling and I could feel them grabbing at me and…” Newt’s breathing hitched and his next breath was a sob, “I’m so, _so_ sorry Hermann. I shouldn’t even be here, _you_ shouldn’t be here, if I’d have just-”

“Newton, stop it, that’s nonsense.”

“No, no, Hermann listen, it’s not – I’m not – You’re wasting your time and… and if I’d have done everything they wanted right, you wouldn’t have even be here, nobody would be here and it’s my fault!”

“None of this is your fault.”

“If you’re so-”

“No, Newton. And even if you were to equate your actions to being anything conscious on your part, which they were absolutely not, you fail to include in your calculations that you were not alone in the world – others were able to stop those monsters that hurt you. We weren’t in time, but we were responsible for the world… and for you too. _I’m_ responsible for you,” Hermann said.

Fresh tears had begun to spill from Newt’s eyes and he wiped at them with his sleeve, clearing some of the snot from under his nose. It was a little revolting, if Hermann was honest, but he allowed Newton to clean his face on his jumper without a scolding. He’d put it in the wash when he had time, probably to Newt’s protestations. Newt’s other hand had dropped to rest on Hermann’s knee but he didn’t make a move to remove it.

 “It shouldn’t be your gig to have to babysit me because my brain’s coming out of my ears.”

Hermann raised an eyebrow and pointedly looked at Newt’s ears, as if checking them for blood.

“You get what I mean, man, that’s not even funny,” Newt said. If he’d have been himself, the sentence would no doubt have come out strong and brash, in a tone that expected an argument and, more importantly, expected to win. As it was, he sounded drained.

“If I have to keep telling you this, I will stamp it on your forehead; I requested to be here.”

“But you have science to do,” Newt said, “Chalk boards to write on. People to bore.” His acquiescence that Hermann’s work was science, in Newt’s eyes, was proof enough of his poor emotional state.

“I am able to do mathematics from anywhere, Newton, it’s part of the beauty of my work. Unlike your hideous dismemberment, which requires several levels of security for you to ignore, I can perform my work admirably from wherever I please, thank you very much,” Hermann said primly. Newt scowled.

They fell into a silence after that, Hermann’s leg making itself known by the now shooting pains that were beginning to spark in the thigh. He knew he’d pay for his rush to the bedroom, but Newt’s head had drooped, dropping to rest just below the crook of Hermann’s neck and he wasn’t sure if it was alright to move. Newt’s personal space had crept into Hermann’s all too often before, especially in the short time before he left for Shao Industries once the war had been won, but this felt different. His body was tense, like he was preparing to be shrugged off at any moment, but his hand was still tight on Hermann’s good knee. It occurred to Hermann that while he himself hadn’t been held this close in a long time, Newt had been an island for so long that Hermann couldn’t remember what it felt like to be this close to him. Newt had been an island from everyone for so, so long. The kind of starvation, the tear-inducing need for touch in the pit of Newt’s stomach was sealed off from Hermann’s side of the Drift, but the grip of his fingers and the hitch of breath on his shoulder was enough for it to spike down Hermann’s spine and keep him rooted to the bed. He couldn’t leave him like this.

Eventually Newt spoke, his voice low.

“I’m _evil_ , Herm.” He sounded truly gutted, like he’d been hollowed out in his sleep.

“You’re not evil, Newt.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Like most things, Newt, I actually do know that for a fact. We drifted _together._ Yours is not the mind of an evil man,” Hermann said, “And more than that, even without the Drift, I worked with you for years and never once did I have reason to believe that you were a bad person. An annoyance, absolutely, but not a bad human being.”

Newt sniffed, his head shifting on Hermann’s neck. Tears were soaked into his pyjamas but he didn’t mind so much. Everything could be fixed, everything could be washed, all of it was so easy to remedy except the broken man beside him.

“I’ve gone crazy, huh?”

He didn’t reply because he didn’t know how to.

Eventually Newt shifted and Hermann looked down to see the shock spreading across his face, a guilty tinge of red creeping up his neck.

“Oh my God, Hermann, your leg! I’m so sorry, shit, you’re twisting and - shit, I’m such an idiot, I didn’t think, I should have-”

“It’s fine,” Hermann said, rolling his eyes, adding with warmth that he didn’t intend to sound so fond, “Idiot.” Newt helped him up, though they were both so wobbly and weak that it was almost a laughable affair by the time Hermann had straightened, leaning heavily on Newt’s bed. His leg, now that he was stood, felt like fire.

“Was I lucky the guard didn’t shoot me?” Newt asked, sheepishly. Hermann gave him an exasperated look.

“If he shot you, he’d better hope he can run fast,” Hermann said blandly. Newt chuckled wetly.

“Aw, Hermann, I never knew you cared,” he said. His eyes, on the other hand, looked at Hermann with such gratitude that he had to look away. He’d forgotten how intense Newt’s gaze could be before the Precursors dulled that spark.

“I don’t care, I was hoping to kill you first,” Hermann deadpanned. He smiled smugly as Newt pretended to be aghast, his mouth opening comically wide.

“Wow. Hermann, that – that hurts dude. You’re a real charmer, that’s real nice, man.”  

Hermann looked at Newt, the awkward half-smile and tired, bloodshot eyes. There was no way he was sleeping tonight. But, also, to point out that fact would be halfway to cruel in Newton’s books. Even in the lab, all-nighters were considered either sacred ground or unmentionable battles. Some days there had been no way to believe a Kaiju wasn’t going to attack in the night, or the Breach wasn’t suddenly going to tear apart, or the Jaegers weren’t going to collapse or – anxiety had kept both of them awake for many a night that had gone unsaid by the morning.

“I’ll send the guard away,” Hermann promised and then, pausing in consideration, continued, “If you need me…”

“Scream?”

Hermann made a face. “Tap on the wall. Our beds are both against it, I’ll hear you.” He wondered if the rooms had been designed with that in mind. He doubted it. Newt nodded, looking uncomfortable but perching back on his bed all the same.

“Cool. Yeah. Got it,” he said. He looked so small that Hermann had to force himself to turn away and leave, closing the door even as he caught the look in Newt’s eye. He was staring at the wall like he was already asleep, eyes open, reliving things Hermann was sure felt like nightmares.

Hermann felt cruel for leaving, no matter how ridiculous staying was. He dismissed the guard more curtly than he intended. 

When he finally fell asleep just before dawn, he dreamed of Kaiju and of falling without end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and con-crit is very welcome - if there's any stylistic things or grammar you'd like to comment on/recommendations on improvements, please let me know!!! I'm always really keen to improve! Thanks for reading guys :)


	15. Making a Mess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this chapter early as I'm away over the weekend! So no Sunday post this week, just this one and then back to Sunday next week :)

Hermann was already awake when the clattering began in the kitchen. Exhaustion won out over concern and he sighed, the alarm clock by his bed showing 5am. It was just two hours after he’d managed to get a fitful moment of sleep. In the end, nightmares had woke him over an hour ago and he had lain, staring at the ceiling, counting the rivets in the steel.

Something clanged in the kitchen and he decided that, should Newt ever return to science, his biological research would best be put to use investigating the effect of sleeplessness on apathy in possibly life threatening situations. Precursors or no, Hermann had slept barely three hours total. He’d fight an army of aliens if it meant he could grab five more minutes.

As it stood, he was in no position to fight anyone and a weak, semi-deranged Newt was in the next room. The thought prompted Hermann to roll unwillingly out of bed, glaring at the floor with a scowl of personal vendetta. He padded out into the living room, wrapping a thin dressing gown around him as he went. The floor was cold and there was still the chill of night in the air.

Hermann stopped as he spotted a figure in the kitchen. A familiar figure, flitting around the cabinets and waving utensils in an entirely un-culinary manner.

“Newton, what on Earth are you doing out here?” Hermann spluttered. Newt jumped and span around, dropping the spatula he was holding with a clatter. His X-Files jumper was rumpled and his hair was in a similar state. It was obvious he hadn’t slept a wink since the nightmare.

“Eyyy,” Newt said by way of greeting, “I was making toast, but then the toaster started smoking so I had to cover up the smoke alarm, which I think is maybe illegal but, whatever, though now I think we need more bread ‘cos I kind of burnt… a lot. You left my door unlocked. Not that I – I mean, I was just up and I just thought I’d make breakfast, I should have stayed in but…”

Newt’s tirade ended lamely as Hermann rotated tiredly to appraise the said unlocked door. He knew he should maybe be more concerned about the security breach and the long list of protocol he’d probably broken by forgetting, but the fact that Newt was here burning breakfast and not the world was progress in itself.   

“Why do you need a spatula to make toast?” Hermann asked dryly, moving past Newt to the kettle, “And honestly Newton, how hard is it to make breakfast? You have six PhDs, or so you keep saying, toast ought to be a breeze.”

“Hey, I resent that, dude, perfect toast is a complex mix of time and, and, you know, waiting and… It’s been a long time since I used a toaster alright? You built Jaeger codes for crying out loud, where’s my self-toasting toaster?”

“That’s what a timer is for.”

“Toaster timers are built to suck, everyone knows that,” Newt whined, “And great. Great, now I wanna watch _Battlestar Galactica._ ” Hermann frowned at him in confusion.

“Toasters? Y’know, like the Cylons?”

Hermann continued to stare blankly at him.

“Dude, you never saw _Battlestar_? You’re missing out. I bet you were into Star Trek.”

Hermann finished his cup of tea and, swiping the tea towel currently tied around the fire alarm as he passed with his cane, moved to the toaster. He dug out the cremated remains of a slice of bread, looking at Newt with dismay.

“You were!” Newt exclaimed loudly, “You were a total Trekkie! Don’t tell me, Spock was your kind of guy, huh?” He wiggled his eyebrows childishly and Hermann rolled his eyes, reloading the toaster.

“Are you always this incessantly chatty in the early hours?” Hermann asked blandly, “I always imagined you needed your first cup of coffee before the lab to get like… this.”

Newt was no longer listening however, instead he was, indeed, making himself coffee from the newly boiled kettle. Hermann watched him, the frantic energy skittering off him in waves. He was a completely different man to the shaking, hollow shell that had woken screaming in the night. Hermann had expected personality changes, had even been prepared to play along with whatever new Newton Geiszlers emerged, but he hadn’t dared to hope for anything so closely resembling the old Newt. He barely wanted to breathe, lest he disturb the carefully fronted exterior Newt was wearing this morning. However much it was related to any kind of progress was debatable. Hermann imagined it had more to do with the vulnerable, embarrassed core buried inside it.

The smell of burning pulled Hermann out of his contemplation and he whipped back to the toaster just in time to see the charred carcass of toast pop out in a plume of hot air.

“Scheisse!” Hermann cursed, grabbing at the piping hot bread with his fingers. Newt snorted behind him.

“ _You were saying about burnt toast?_ ” Newt taunted in German. Hermann glared at him. The easy switch back to German, however, surprised him. Newt had grown more accustomed to speaking English than Hermann had, and their agreement to speak English around others for courtesies sake had made it more significant, but they had sometimes spoken to each other in tired German on long, insomnia-fuelled all-nighters during the war.

“ _Shut up, Newton,”_ Hermann said sharply and Newt hid his grin in his coffee.

  

* * *

 

 

There were no _Battlestar_ reruns on the TV, which sent Newt into a long rant about the lack of sci-fi services on Shatterdome televisions, but there was an old movie that Newt had taken to half watching while eating his breakfast. He was sprawled on the sofa, seeing the TV but not watching with particularly rapt attention. Hermann sat on the end, nibbling at what had been the only piece of toast he hadn’t scorched.

“I have to see Ranger Lambert today,” Hermann said. He watched Newt for a reaction but there was none. “Am I okay to leave you here or…?”

Newt shot Hermann with a withering look.

“I think I’ll be fine, there’ll be two big burly guys with guns hanging around, I’m sure I won’t be slipping off to any parties,” Newt deadpanned.

“That’s not what I-”

“I know what you meant, Hermann,” Newt said. There was no sting of accusation in the words, but Hermann felt a pang of guilt all the same.

“If you need me at all, I’ll be-”

“On the radio, seriously, Hermann, you’re not sending me off to prom here dude, you’re literally only going to like, the other side of the Dome. It’s fine.”

Newt’s assurance didn’t help him an hour later when he made his way across the Dome to the war room. LOCCENT was apparently too busy to meet in, though Hermann doubted the strategizing hub would be much more private. He’d left Newt on the sofa with the promise to return within the hour, much to Newt’s annoyance.

“Still don’t need a babysitter, Hermann,” Newt had said as Hermann left. The sudden lack of energy rooting Newt to the couch whispered uncomfortable things in Hermann’s consciousness and he nodded tightly at the guards outside as he passed, wishing he could tell Nate that, whatever it was, it could be discussed by radio. Newt wasn’t exactly alone, he’d never be alone again, but he was alone with two armed men who, for all Hermann knew, could have lost people in the Shatterdome attack. He walked faster than he knew he should to the war room.

“Hermann!” Nate called Hermann over from across the room when he entered, a few personnel bustling around. Holograms blazed in every direction, mathematical models of the Breach that Hermann knew in seconds he could improve upon. Would have improved upon already, if he’d even considered math in the past few weeks. Weeks without math felt like weeks outside of his mind, floating adrift from himself. But as much as he hated it, math hadn’t consoled him once while Newt was incarcerated.

It made him want to break every model in the room.

“How’s Newt?” Nate asked. For once, Jake was nowhere to be seen and Hermann almost expected to hear sirens blazing any second now and trouble to be on its way imminently. Nate seemed to catch the look and quickly explained, “Jake’s with the Jaeger pilots, he’s spearheading the… other side of things.”

“The other side of what?” Hermann said. Nate’s expression twisted.

“Newton is alone right now, besides the usual cavalry. As such, I’m not in the mood for small talk,” Hermann asserted. Nate sighed. He gestured for Hermann to follow him.

They reached a hologram of the Breach that Hermann recognised as his own most recent model, sealed off but unstable in every way that mattered. He longed for a time when the only time bomb beneath the ocean had been plate shifts.

“We’re going after the Precursors,” Nate said, “We’re taking the fight to them.”

“Jake informed me of this weeks ago, Ranger Lambert, and while I am wholeheartedly in support of eradicating those bastards, I don’t see-”

“I mean, effective immediately. We want to strike while the iron is hot, catch them off-guard. With your help in Breach theory, we can get the mission off the ground ASAP.”

“Why do I feel there is a caveat to this conversation?” Hermann said.

The hologram reflected blue waves in Nate’s eyes, lighting up every change with a neon glow, like iodine dye altering the cells with every shift of emotion. Guilt flashed there, followed by trepidation.

“We need Newt. We need everything he can give us on the Precursors,” Nate admitted. Hermann’s frown deepened.

“No. I understand your urgency, but Newton is barely clinging on as it is. It’s too soon,” Hermann said.

“We don’t have time to wait for when, or even _if_ , he gets better, Hermann.”

Hermann bristled. “ _When_ Newton gets better, you may ask what you please but an innocent man is-”

“If there was more time, Hermann, I would wait. I said I wanted Newt better and I do, but the human race has to come first, and this is our best shot.”

“And if we use Newton without a moment’s thought to his mind, how much humanity do we save of the human race, Nate?” Hermann asked softly, “Doctor Geiszler is infuriatingly stubborn, and no doubt he’ll be all for doing what he can to help, despite the consequences, but Newton’s mind is fragile. I won’t have you break it.”

Nate’s eyes met Hermann’s solidly, resolute in a way that Hermann recognised in Jake sometimes. There were times when he saw bits of Newt in the mirror sometimes too. He wondered if Nate and Jake had shared the same spark of wild danger in their eyes before they became Drift partners. If maybe Hermann had been the only other man on Earth who would agree to Newt’s insanity because that’s what made them compatible. A shared insanity. Shared consequences.

“I wouldn’t do that to him, I promise you,” Nate said, “I’ll do the interview myself. You can be present. If he needs to stop, we stop, but at least give him the chance to do this. You said it yourself, he’d be volunteering for this if he was here now.”

“Just because Newton Geiszler volunteers for something, does not mean it is mentally sound,” Hermann reminded him. Nate chuckled.

“When do you want to perform this… interview?” Hermann asked.

“Tomorrow morning? Soon as possible.”  

Hermann sighed. He thought about Newton, burning toast and saving the world. He thought about Newton’s dream, the expectation of hitting concrete but never reaching rock bottom; just plummeting further into things he could never change or undo.

“Fine,” Hermann agreed, “But only if Newton agrees.” Nate smiled at that and Hermann couldn’t help but feel like he’d lost an argument he didn’t know he was having.

After all, he asked himself, since when did Newton Geiszler ever pass up a chance to self-destruct?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter sneak peek: Amara will make an appearance!! I’m v excited for it!  
> A note on the German usage in this fic: I’m a coward. I can’t speak German and I won’t insult anyone by Google translating. So I will in-text denote German usage when it appears, as done here. I find it better than awkwardly placing bad translations with the English in the notes. I personally headcanon that Newt doesn’t speak super great German anymore (explaining why he and Hermann don’t argue in German in the movie) and they always speak English in public BUT I refuse to believe that German isn’t spoken in the Newmann home. I refuse. 
> 
> Thanks as always for reading, guys, and thank you so so much to everyone who comments on this fic, your comments make my week!


	16. Cut to the Point

Newt hadn’t moved an inch from his place on the sofa when Hermann returned, hurrying through the corridors with a little more haste than his leg necessarily agreed with. He hid his surprise with a scowl when he entered. A still Newt was a Newt to worry about.

He waited for Newt’s inevitable curiosity to spring forth and the twenty questions he’d get about Lambert, but nothing came. Newt’s gaze remained solidly on a point just past the television, a tightness to his features. His eyes were squinting even in the mild lighting.

“Nate has a… favour to ask. I told him that I’d ask you; we’ll only do this if you agree to it.”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever,” Newt said. Hermann frowned.

“You don’t want to hear what he asked first?”

“Hermann, I’ve got a headache, man. If you – Listen, just, whatever you think is best, yeah? We can do whatever you want.”

 “I’m not going to make the decision for you. It’s not up to me,” Hermann asserted. Newt sighed. It was a tired, irritated sound. It wasn’t like the easy going Newt Hermann remembered, but something sharper and crueller.

“He wants to arrange an interview with you… about the Precursors. Tomorrow morning.”

Newt didn’t react. “Yeah, whatever you think is good, man, I don’t care.”

“You don’t care?”

“I don’t wanna have to decide okay? Jeez, I thought you’d be happy that I’m agreeing with you for once!”

_That’s precisely what I’m concerned about,_ Hermann wanted to snap back, but he bit his tongue. He wasn’t sure who he was arguing with here, or even what the argument was about this time. Newt looked drained and pinched, his long hair greasy and flopping over his eyes. There was more beneath his blank stare than he was letting on.

Hermann grumbled under his breath and marched into his bedroom, digging with a frustrated fervour into the luggage he’d had moved in. Eventually he found a little leather case, engraved with his initials, and he brought it back into the living room with him.

“Sit up,” he ordered, perching himself at the end of the sofa. Newt gave him a vitriolic look, barbed with a distaste that actually took Hermann aback. Newt stared him out for a long moment with that same angry, pained look before his expression flattened and he growled, sitting up with apparent difficulty. Even in his annoyance, however, Hermann noted that he tucked his feet beneath himself to make room for Hermann to sit properly. He hid his appreciative smile as he opened the leather pouch.

Newt flinched when he saw the contents of the case. The little grooming kit was filled with the usual essentials, a shaver, little scissors, a nail file, but Newt looked at the sharp edges as if they belonged to the Demon Barber. Hermann cringed internally, wondering if he’d assumed too much, or perhaps too little. For the first time ever, and Hermann hoped the _last_ time, Newt looked afraid of him. Of his best friend. His… he wasn’t even sure what they were after the Drift.

Newt looked at Hermann unsteadily, chewing at his lip while Hermann unclipped the scissors from the set.

“You need a haircut,” Hermann said primly, trying to seem as normal as he could when Newt was looking at him with a sheen in his eyes. Newt blinked like he’d just thrown him a curveball and Hermann’s stomach sank.

“Oh.”

“I’d allow you to do it yourself but…”

“Yeah, I imagine it’d be kind of stupid to let me have sharp pointy things?” There wasn’t the usual humour in Newt’s voice. For a moment, Hermann couldn’t meet his eye.

“You’d make a mess of your hair if I let you cut it,” Hermann retorted, “Probably cut a Mohawk or something silly.”

That got the lightest of smiles from Newt, some of the lines smoothing around his eyes. Hermann took an appraising look at Newt’s untamed hair. Cutting it into anything half decent was a challenge in itself, but especially so for Hermann, who’d never cut hair in his life. Quantum physics was simple, logical. Style, on the other hand, was something Hermann put beneath functionality.

Newt undoubtedly caught the dubious look on his face. “If I end up with a bowl cut, Hermann…” He didn’t finish the threat but Hermann snorted at it all the same.

“So you’re going to let me do it?” 

Newt twisted his mouth thoughtfully. He looked Hermann up and down with a clearer gaze. At least Hermann’s plan was working in that respect, even if it meant he’d consigned himself to now cutting the ridiculous mop of hair.

“At least if it sucks, it’s not like everybody’s gonna see it anyways,” Newt said, gesturing vaguely with one hand to their confined living quarters. He shuffled a little closer to Hermann, crossing his legs comfortably and leaning forward as if proffering his head to a chopping block. Hermann raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t need to lean your head forward, I’m not totally incapable,” Hermann grumbled. He didn’t let on that, in this arena, he was perhaps entirely incapable. The thought made him smirk involuntarily. Newt glowered at him.

“I’m better doing the back first, spin around,” Hermann said.

“If you do the back, I can’t see it, you’ll make a mess.”

“If I do the front, you couldn’t see it anyway Newton, it’s on your head.” Newt glared but, seeing as he couldn’t argue with the logic, he grumbled and shuffled round. His shoulders had tensed some, creeping up around his neck defensively and Hermann wondered if it was a reflex or if Newt genuinely believed he’d hurt him. After everything they’d been through, he surely hoped it was the former.

“It can’t possibly be as bad as the tattoo you got from that dreadful stall in Hong Kong.”

Newt barked a laugh, to Hermann’s surprise, and his shoulders relaxed incrementally.

“Oh my God, I forgot about that,” Newt laughed, “That was _awful_. I thought they’d never fix it. I’d be stuck with Kaiju anime eyes for the rest of eternity.” He rubbed at his sleeve, the tattoos no doubt writhing with the movement beneath the fabric. He hadn’t rolled his sleeves since the Precursors had left. Hermann didn’t even consider addressing it. That wound would need to heal in time, if ever.

Hermann couldn’t hold back his own laughter, remembering the ridiculous mistake the tattoo “artist” had made with the last of Newt’s Kaiju tattoos. The eyes had been comically big and Newton, ranting furiously, had waved the still healing mess in Hermann’s face. Despite the disgusting inflammation around it, Hermann had almost choked with laughing. It was still funny, years later.

Newt chuckled too, their laughter intertwining. Hermann realised with a jolt that they’d laughed more in the past week than they had in the past decade. The thought was like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head.

“Alright,” he cautioned, “Hold still, I need to cut this straight.” He didn’t mention the risk of cutting Newt’s skin if he moved. Hermann would rather catch himself on the scissors than knock Newt’s trust by nicking him accidentally. Newt nodded and then, catching his mistake, stilled. Hermann began to snip gently at the back of his hair, locks drifting onto the sofa like falling feathers. Newt hummed a nervous sound in the back of his throat.

“Are you mad at me?” he asked out of the blue. Hermann frowned, pausing for a second in his task.

“Why would I be mad at you?”

Newt looked like he was going to shrug, but stopped himself just in time. “I don’t know. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. Earlier.”

“Well, it’s not the only time you’ve ever been snippy, Newton.”

“Snippy,” Newt chuckled, one hand reaching back to point at where he could hear the scissors. Hermann wished he could see his unimpressed scowl, but he reckoned he’d imagine it all the same. He kept cutting in silence, trying to word his response in the gentlest way. Gentle was never his finest quality. In the end, he decided to be direct. At least Newt would know where he stood.

“I understand why you don’t want to make a decision regarding Lambert,” Hermann said bluntly. Newt tensed.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yes you did. And it’s alright, I understand. But you cannot continue to avoid making decisions like that Newton, no matter how easy it may seem.”

Newt kept still but the tapping of his fingers on the sofa indicated just how difficult that was. “It’s not like I’ve made the best decisions lately dude,” he said finally, “If you think I should go then-”

“It’s not about what I think, Newton.”

“What I think is _stupid_ ,” Newt whined. Hermann clipped a little hard with the scissors by mistake and they both flinched at the sound. He’d seen what Newt thought, at least in his dreams, and he didn’t want to remember having that thought playing out in his brain.

“You’re not stupid, don’t be ridiculous,” Hermann said sharply, then took a breath, collecting himself, “Listen, for the first time in a long time I think, this is _your_ choice. And I, for one, trust your decision.”

Newt snorted derisively. “That’s a first.”

“Would we have saved the world doing something ridiculous if I _didn’t_ trust your opinion?” Hermann pointed out, “For that matter, if I’d have trusted your choice to begin with, you’d never have Drifted alone with…” He paused, the drop of his heart as he tumbled over the cliff of too-much-said making his tongue freeze. If he’d have listened to what Newton had wanted all those years ago, they’d never have been in this mess in the first place.

Newt craned his neck, looking at Hermann’s frozen hands and stricken expression.

“Seriously?” he said. Hermann blinked out of his daze.

“Pardon?”

“There’s only room for one guilty basket case here Hermann, otherwise we’ll have to take turns.” Hermann rolled his eyes and gestured for Newt to turn back, returning to his hair. Silence passed, the back of Newt’s hair finally shaping into something short and recognisable. It wasn’t perfect, but Hermann had thrown enough chalk at the back of Newt’s head to remember the shape and texture of his haircut. At least, the one he remembered before Shao Industries.

“They’ll ask about the Precursors right?” Newt asked quietly. Hermann nodded, then remembered Newt was facing away from him.

“Yes. Lambert wants to know as much as you can tell him about them, as soon as possible. I told him it was-”

“I’ll do it,” Newt interrupted, “if you want a decision. If it helps… then I want to help.” The urge to argue tickled at Hermann’s throat, to warn Newt of how dangerous it was, how self-destructive it could be. But arguing would make a hypocrite of him. He wanted Newt to make a choice and he had.

“Alright then.”

They continued in silence after that, Newt’s thoughtful and Hermann’s concentrated. When he asked Newt to turn around, Newt had smirked at the way Hermann’s tongue poked at the corner of his mouth when he was deep in concentration, cutting away at the floppy fringe of hair.

In the end, Hermann didn’t think he’d done a half bad job. It was definitely shorter than Newt’s hair had been in years and maybe, Hermann thought guiltily, that had something to do with a memory of a certain, younger Newton Geiszler smiling in a Polaroid picture. He let Newt scurry off quickly to the bathroom mirror, watching him through the door as he poked and preened. He was glad to see some of his energy return, at least.

Newt looked through the bathroom door, running his hands through his hair as if he was running gel through it. Hermann wondered if he could somehow procure some of Newt’s old hair products.

“Oh my God, Hermann,” Newton said, “I’m hot again.”

Something warm flared in Hermann’s chest and from the image of Newt in his periphery, he could almost see the man he knew ten years ago.

 

* * *

 

Newt’s haircut didn’t improve his mood the next morning. He’d been awake since Hermann had ordered him to bed way past midnight, like a naughty child staying up to watch television. He hadn’t felt sleepy at all during the night, his nightmare from the previous evening still replaying over and over again at the picturehouse of horrors in his skull. He’d stayed awake, clawing fingers through his newly cut hair, jumping at every shift and yawn of the shadows. If he fell asleep, he knew that it would be waiting for him. Worse, _they_ would be waiting for him. And even with the locked door to his room, there was always a chance that he could escape, and Hermann was only –

The dawn dragged in, or what Newt assumed was the time the sun rose, as the depths of the Shatterdome told no secrets about the sun or the moon. He still had to wait for Hermann to open his door at six AM and he slunk out, making a beeline for the coffee machine. Hermann looked at him with a suspicious, concerned expression, no doubt observing the bags under his eyes and the way his hair stuck up in worried angles. _Fuck off,_ Newt wanted to spit, _I’m not your science project._

Another morning and he may have caught his cursing reproachfully, but this time he let it slip past his mental checkpoint without scrutiny. Exhaustion had sunk into his bones and he tried to think about yesterday evening, the grounding feel of Hermann’s hands in his hair and the way he looked almost like a human being in the mirror. Tried not to think about the day he’d spent on the couch, feeling inhuman. Trying not to feel so he didn’t claw his skin off before Hermann returned.

Hermann watched him over breakfast. Hermann who had looked at Newt last night like he was normal, like the last ten years hadn’t aged him. Newt wanted to yell at him but getting mad only made a lump rise in his throat and tears spring to his eyes. Hermann shouldn’t be here, wasting his time when Newt knew, beyond doubt, that this wasn’t going to get better. It wasn’t something that _should_ get better.

_I hurt everyone I ever loved_ , Newt wanted to say.

Instead he tried to smile wryly when Hermann asked if he’d slept. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

He didn’t speak at all as Hermann talked about… Newt wasn’t sure. He knew that they were going somewhere and it took him a long time, _too long,_ to remember where. The specifics of yesterday floated and dipped out of his grasp a lot and he bit back a frustrated sound as Hermann talked, not really listening. If Hermann knew how much his memories slipped and shifted, Newt would be back in the infirmary before he could blink.

Lambert.

He was going to see Lambert. About – about the Precursors.

The thought of them sent a shiver down Newt’s spine, the physical sensation slamming Newt back into reality just as Hermann looked at him expectantly, a question evidently hanging in the air. Newt blinked.

“Sorry, what?”

Hermann sighed. “I said, are you ready? We need to leave.”

Newt nodded but he could see the way Hermann frowned at him. It was a look that churned guilt and anger and grief in equal measure in Newt’s gut and he scowled at Hermann.

“Yeah, okay, we can go, let’s go,” Newt grumbled.

The guards joined them as they left the apartment, walking through the Shatterdome. Despite the early hour, a few people were wandering around the halls and they looked disdainfully first at Newt, and then Hermann. Newt didn’t mind the stares so much but he shot hard looks at anyone he caught glaring at Hermann. To his dismay, he saw Hermann doing the same for him.

They were at the upper levels of the Shatterdome, Newt could tell by the breeze in the air and the way sea salt clung to his cheeks even indoors, when a girl with long brown hair stepped out into their path from a door on their left.  Immediately Newt felt the guards shift, their hands going to their guns when Newt jarred to a stop to avoid barrelling straight into her.

“Oh, sorry!” she said, drawing up short from where she’d nearly walked directly into Hermann and then looked up, taking in the two scientists. Newt saw Hermann, the goof that he was, fumble with the close proximity and then brighten as he waved an offhand gesture at the two armed men behind them and pulled Newt closer to him by the sleeve. Newt muffled a yelp, stumbling over his feet. The girl barely looked sixteen, and Newt tried to hold his distance. He’d seen her, somewhere, he was sure. That, or the horror show had started up again and he was seeing Mako in his mind’s eye, sixteen and rebellious, grinning at Hermann in the lab from Newt’s desk. His feet almost slipped in an attempt to stay back from her.

“Miss Namani!” Hermann exclaimed, and Newt looked back and forth between the pair.

“Dr Gottlieb!” she exclaimed in return, “Oh my God, this is crazy, I wanted to talk you today about-” Newt tuned out of the conversation but he was certain they were talking maths, or code, or something and Newt felt like he’d wondered into the Twilight Zone. Since when was Hermann the popular one? _Since you tried to kill everyone in this Dome and the rest of the world_ , his mind supplied. Hermann turned to him, stepping back a little to let the girl see Newt better. Newt was sure he stood on one of the guard’s toes as he did so, but if he did, Hermann didn’t apologise.

“Miss Namani, this is-” Hermann cut himself and suddenly his expression flattened, a guilty look falling into place. Something else clicked into place for Newt and he stepped back a little, his gut sinking. He couldn’t know for sure. He couldn’t place her. But there had been children in those Jaegers, in Tokyo. He knew that much.

Oh God.

Starlights of glass like pieces of dust floated in Newt’s peripheral and the whip of wind hit his face.

“I don’t-” He began but the girl cut him off, looking at him with an unreadable expression.

“I’m Amara Namani,” she said. Her voice was bright, but forced. Newt appreciated the effort so much that he almost fell to knees. He tried to think of what to say. “I’m sorry” seemed so impossibly inadequate. He wished he lived in one of the samurai movies he used to love in college. Wished he could drop to her feet and offer his neck for a sword. How many of her friends had been in those Jaegers? How many had died? How many had suffered because of _him_?

 “I knew the people that died in Tokyo,” Amara said and Newt felt it like a punch to the gut, “And I don’t know you. But Dr Gottlieb talks about all the stuff you did during the war. He seems to know you pretty well.” She gave Newt an appraising look that seemed too old for her years. Newt didn’t dare move his eyes from hers.

“I just wanted to say… I know what it’s like to have people think less of you because of what they see.”

Her gaze didn’t leave Newt’s. There was a life in her eyes still that reminded Newt of something he’d felt during the war, that drive onwards that never stopped. He saw something of his own heartbreak in her eyes, a flicker of guilt and loss and anger that burrowed into his core and froze him to the spot.

Amara released her gaze, smiling slightly to Hermann who murmured something Newt couldn’t pay attention to. She left without another word to him but Newt could still almost feel the way she looked at him, alive and kind and furious all at the same time. When his tongue slipped free from the cotton feeling in his mouth, he didn’t know what he wanted to say before he said it.  

“She beat it. The Kaiju,” he said plainly, registering Hermann’s calculating appraisal of him.

“With a little help,” Hermann huffed good-naturedly.

_Amara Namani,_ Newt considered, _if she’d been around for the first war, she’d have been a certified rock star._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on Amara: I headcanoned that she'd have spoken with Hermann post-PRU as they're both Jaeger super fans! She'd defo admire him (after her initial impression) and my headcanon is that, despite her loss, she'd trust Hermann's friendship with Newt. Plus, she reminds me a bit of Newt in her passion and excitement. So I think she's a character who would give him the benefit of the doubt regardless and realise that he was being used against his will. 
> 
> As for this chapter, I’m not sure why it was so hard to write, but I had real trouble with it :/ I’m struggling to find a job/living circumstances so it’s had me feeling low atm. I did what I could with this chapter, but I didn’t want to spend another week on it because I didn’t feel like it would change enough to be worth it. Sorry to let you guys down on this chapter but I’ll be back next week with more to give!   
> Criticism welcomed! I hope you all have a great week :)


	17. Questions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning for a moment of suicidal thinking and a panic attack in this chapter. Newt, as we know, has ten years of trauma to work through and it's not going to be easy, so this chapter deals with some reactions to this - please take care of yourselves while reading if these subjects are triggering for you.

"Newton, please stop doing that."

Newt looked up from where he'd been tapping on the table, playing a tune on an invisible piano, something he could only half remember. The room was a modified office, the desk centered and the the rest of the furniture moved out. _At least it's not the cell,_ Newt reminded himself. He was sat on one side of the desk, Hermann stood just a few paces from him. Hermann always preferred to stand, Newt guessed it was a weird Hermann thing about respect or winning arguments or summoning maths Gods or whatever. He kept tapping nervously at the table.

"Newt, if you keep-"

The door to the room opened and Nate Lambert walked in, seating himself at the table with a nod to Hermann. Newt watched him, heart beginning to pound inexplicably. He glanced unsteadily at Hermann, who gave him an encouraging half smile.

Newt’s apprehension only increased when the door swung open again, and Jake Pentecost walked in, dragging his feet. He leaned against the back wall, the room stilling around him as both Lambert and Hermann gave him alternating looks, one warning, the other infuriated. As for Newt, he tore his gaze from the man as fast as possible. Prickles of sweat opened on his brow and the back of his neck. He remembered Ranger Pentecost only from the room he’d been kept in, but none of that mattered - Newt had killed Pentecost’s sister, a girl Newt had loved like his own family. Bile rose in his throat and he tried to swallow it down with less than a whimper. It didn’t work and the sound escaped him anyway, his sleeve coming up in a nervous gesture to muffle it.

“Hey Newt,” Lambert said. Newt appreciated the effort the Ranger put into sounding casual, friendly even.

“Hey,” Newt gasped, wiping at the sweat growing on his brow. He felt gross, wet all over and hot like he was sick. He kept his gaze resolutely on a spot by Lambert’s head.

Trying for the levity he didn’t feel, Newt said, “It’s er, it’s cool to be back.”

He could practically feel Hermann rolling his eyes. Weirdly, that was the thing that finally got him to look Lambert in the face. “So like… what do you guys guys wanna know? I got – I got like, notes I could send you or-”

“Actually, we already found the diaries in your room at Shao Industries,” Lambert said.

“Oh.” Newt mentally kicked himself. Of course they had, they’d gone through everything he owned when he’d been moved here. How had he forgotten that?

“Yeah, well,” Newt covered, “They start roundabout when I knew something was up? And I think they’re only for like a year or something before we – I mean, they… _I_ stopped – shit.”

Hermann shifted in Newt’s line of sight like he wanted to come towards him, but he hung back, face twisted in a disapproving stare. It usually happened when Newt talked, to be fair, but he looked even grouchier than usual. Newt would have to ask him what bug crawled into _his_ cereal when they left.

Lambert pulled out a data pad that Newt hadn’t even noticed and typed something. He craned his neck to try and see what it was, feeling like he was seventeen and in his therapist’s office again, but he stopped trying when Hermann shook his head with a glare.

“I want to start with some easier questions,” Lambert said eventually, “And then we can go more into detail.” Newt nodded but the words got caught in his throat. There weren’t any easy questions. All of them made him want to crawl out of his skin and run away to anywhere that wasn’t here.

Pentecost still hadn’t said a word, merely staring at Newt like he was trying to work out a puzzle.

“There’s no rush, we just need you to give us what you have in as much detail as you can. I’m going to record this,” he laid the pad on the table and pressed a button before speaking directly to it, “My name is Nathan Lambert, I’m here with Jacob Pentecost and Dr Hermann Gottlieb. Can you state your name please?” He was addressing Newt, who flushed, realising just a second too late for it not to be awkward.

“Er… Newt? I mean, Newton. Newton Geiszler.” _Smooth_ , he scolded himself. Even on an official recording he was going to sound like an idiot who couldn’t even remember his own name. He winced as Hermann corrected him a moment later, “Doctor. Doctor Newton Geiszler.”

Something about the moniker sounded even worse now than it had before all of this. Newt shot Hermann a scowl and hoped it communicated something dangerous and unsavory should he ever repeat the correction. Hermann just looked at him impassively.

“Alright, Newt, we need some clarifications on some of the notes you made in the diaries. You said that the Precursors were able to communicate via a Drift you’d established with a Kaiju brain, which you maintained over several years. That’s right, yeah?”

Newt felt his stomach drop to the floor, regret washing over him. He’d been so stupid to believe he could do this, he needed to get out of here already and it was only the first question. A simple yes or no, it wasn’t hard, just answer something _you idiot_ , say something, _nobody cares,_ it’s just a question, they won’t hurt you –

“Yes,” Newt choked out. The chair felt like it was rolling on waves beneath him and he clenched his fists, “Yeah, yeah I... I didn’t mean to keep Drifting, they made – that’s not an… I mean, yes. Yes, that’s, that’s what happened.”

He could see the concern on Nate and Hermann’s faces even through the haze that closed over him. He wished Jake would at least look happy to see him squirm, at least look like he was enjoying seeing Mako's killer writhe under the microscope. Instead he just looked blandly on, standing back to watch the puzzle rotate on its own. It was taking everything Newt had to not to simply pitch from his spinning chair and throw himself at Pentecost’s feet, to not turn himself in and rot for everything he’d done.

That’s not what you’re here for, Newt tried to remind himself, you’re meant to be helping.

“They… they definitely got through the Drift,” Newt struggled, “Like, it’s complicated and… and they’re really, really smart, like crazy smart and we know nothing about them really, but they know a lot more about us. It’s like they’ve studied us from afar, you know, so they already had a key to… well, I guess that makes me kind of, kind of a door I guess…”

Newt lapsed into silence, biting his lip, chewing off skin. He knew that his leg was bouncing annoyingly under the table and it was probably being caught on the recording but God, he needed to be useful right now. He owed them that at the goddamn least.

Lambert looked him over like he was a bomb set to detonate, taking a moment before he asked, “Did they speak to you? Was there communication between you, do you think that’s how they studied us?”

Newt shook his head vehemently, still chewing his lip. The movement made him bite down a little too hard and he tasted blood, but he kept worrying at the wound with his teeth. This was okay, everything was going to be fine. He was going to be useful and then he could go back to his room and bury himself beneath the covers until, hopefully, he asphyxiated from the stale air. He imagined Hermann finding him like that and shuddered, pushing the thought from his mind guiltily.

“No, they knew a lot about us anyway. From before, maybe, I dunno, but they already knew how to make me – how to… like, apply pressure and stuff.” The air seemed to fizz with tension and Newt resolutely refused to look at Hermann or the way he was no doubt white-knuckling his cane right now. “They spoke to me, kind of. I guess, they don’t really speak, you know?”

“They spoke to me.” Newt jumped at Jake’s voice. “When you were locked up in the cells, they were definitely speaking then.” His voice was neutral, confident and, to Newt’s frustration, utterly impossible to read. It took Newt several tries to make his throat work in response.

“Yeah, I mean, they _can_ speak but – but it’s not like how we speak. Like I don’t know man, they can’t really use language. They’re completely psychoconnective – they just sorta send empathic communication through the Drift? I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Take your time, you don’t gotta do everything in one go,” Lambert said patiently.

Newt breathed. _You have to be useful._ “They don’t have any kind of formulated speech… they just sorta emote on a base level to control the Kaiju.” _And to control me._

“So how did they speak to us?” Lambert asked. Newt was grateful he didn’t specify ‘though you’. He hated the embarrassment that flooded him at the thought of being their puppet for so long. He cursed his brain and its ridiculous, awful reactions to, well, just about everything nowadays.

“They kinda fed all of that through me, first?” Newt shuddered, and his entire body tingled with renewed nausea as he tried to fight back the panic that was starting to build. He couldn’t do this. “Like a tape running back through a recorder. They ran the neural commands through… _everything._ ” And God, he could still feel it. Like hands running through blades of grass in his mind, each blade a memory, shifting and rustling under the Precursors’ touch. There wasn’t a single part of him that hadn’t been turned over and scrutinised, the underbelly of his thoughts rolled and shown to the hivemind. 

“They fed their communications through my memories and, I dunno, I guess my language centre? They kinda hardwired it in there. So when they sent messages I could just sort of… translate it verbally,” Newt said, and now his breathing was getting in the way of his speech, “You know, the way we speak is made up of connections and linguistic cues we learn over the years, which is why… why it sounded like me… why I sounded like myself while they were -”

There was no way of holding it back. That godawful feeling of his brain being stretched into string and fed out of his mouth, words that weren’t his own being plucked out of his throat. Sneering at the people he loved like he’d never see them again. If he stayed for one more second, he was going to die, he was sure of it.

Newt’s chair scraped back as he stood suddenly, and the wave of panic hit him so hard that he almost collapsed to the ground, tears springing in his eyes. _Oh God, no no no, please, please, don’t – not again, somebody_ help _me –_

He registered that Lambert had stood too, still cautiously at the other side of the table, but Hermann was in front of Newt suddenly, holding his shoulders. Newt careened backwards, stumbling and almost falling to the floor.

“I can’t – I cant…” he couldn’t get the words out and that only made his panic skyrocket, taking rational thought with it as his mind went white.

“Newton, breathe with me, that’s all, just breathe,” Hermann urged.

Newt shook his head but he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t know why he was stood, why he couldn’t breathe, when did he get here? Where even _was_ here? The lack of recognition kicked him in the chest and he was heaving in breaths at an alarming rate, his hands flapping and shaking in front of him as he tried to grab onto anything solid, anything real that he could clutch onto before they pulled him back into his own mind.

“You don’t have to do anything else but breathe, Newt,” Hermann said again and his voice was so calm that Newt could almost believe for a second that he wasn’t moments from passing out, or worse.

Hermann backed up a step but he lifted a hand and placed it gently on Newt’s chest, the rapid rise and fall lifting and dropping it in time with Newt’s breathing. Newt felt the loose centre of warmth, the thrum of closeness in the touch and it was like a Drift being opened. A valve pressured open in his thoughts, like everything was suddenly being sucked out of an airlock into the space between them.

“That’s good, Newt, very good.” Newt was vaguely aware that his breathing had stuttered and then calmed ever so slightly, his eyesight clearing and his brain fizzing.

“You can do this,” Hermann encouraged and God, Newt needed to hear that. The corners of Hermann’s mouth lifted a little and damn it, Newt was sure he’d heard that thought.

_We can do this_. Surety passed through the remains of the Drift and Newt felt like he could breathe again. Hermann was worried but his resolve was unshakeable. He had no reservations about Newt, though Newt couldn’t really understand why. He’d earned at least a little mistrust in the past few years.

He vaguely noticed Hermann throwing a look at Lambert over his shoulder, who nodded, gesturing in a way that said “go ahead”. He looked like he was facing down a Kaiju without a Jaeger, rather than a shaking, sweating 5’7’’ man having a panic attack. Pentecost didn’t look much better, but there was a surveying look to him that reminded Newt of the man’s father. Newt was ashamed to admit it, but he was glad that Stacker Pentecost couldn’t see him like this. He’d already seen Newt as a joke – and now he was even less than funny.

He felt Hermann’s hands on his shoulders guiding him outside and he clung on, adrift.

 

* * *

 

Hermann bundled Newt into the corridor. A few people passed, openly staring, followed shortly by their ever present armed sentry. Herman scowled at him to stay back, hunching over Newt as he heaved and gasped.

“It’s alright, take your time, just breathe,” Hermann urged. Newt nodded on instinct but his hands still jittered over his knees, stress flooding his system. He retched but, thankfully, nothing came up and Newt muffled a sob into his sleeve. Hermann rubbed his back, feeling the heat radiating from Newt’s zip-up hoodie. He tempered the concern fluttering in his chest by pressing close to Newt’s hunched form, feeling the closeness reach over the remnants of their Ghost Drift and settle in the spaces of Hermann’s mind which had been Newt's since their first time Drifting.

“It’s alright, it’s over.”

Newt lifted his head, his breathing ragged and pained. “It’s not – it’s not over Herm. They’re still here. I can feel them, I can feel them.”

A chill, like the raking of claws up his back, passed over Hermann. The closeness he’d felt shifted into something cold and lonely and painful that shot tears into Hermann eyes and almost made him step back from Newton. There was so much he hadn’t said. There were so many things Newton wanted to say, so much he’d kept inside for so long, a kind of pain that Hermann had trouble quantifying; and it was tearing him apart. It was tearing both of them apart. 

“You can feel them too, right?” Newt said, his eyes locked onto Hermann’s with urgency, “They’re here, you know they are.” _I can’t do that again_. Newt didn’t need to reveal that thought through the Drift, Hermann could see it in his eyes.

He hoped Newton was too distracted to look closely into Hermann’s thoughts, to scour the hallucinations he’d had when Newt was in the infirmary, or the nightmares he still suffered when he slept. The ones that seemed to say things aloud in the dark of his room at night. Things he’d never heard in his dreams before.

He wrapped an arm around Newt’s shoulder and pulled back from the Drift’s serrated edges. He had the unnerving feeling of being watched, though from where he couldn’t tell.

“Let’s get you back,” Hermann said delicately. Newt’s weak assent made it easier to steer him silently away from that damn room.

There were things Hermann left unsaid, for Newton’s sake. He was smart enough to know that Newt, in his silence, kept Hermann’s heart from breaking any more than it already had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and commenting so far! Lemme know what you think and if there's anything you feel needs improvement, I'd love to hear it. Till next time, have a lovely week guys!


	18. Much Needed Advice

“Wow, you look terrible.”

Hermann almost spilled the water in his cup as he put his tray down with more force than necessary. The mess hall was busier than it had been in past months, filled with people working on getting the recently demolished Jaegers operational. Word on the base had spread fast, despite Ranger Lambert’s best attempts to keep it at bay, and everyone seemed to be talking about the possibility of breaching the Anteverse. Hermann was thankful that nobody knew the real truth; that they were no closer to that than they’d ever been. Nobody was giving up, but for now everything rested on Newt… who had flinched and shaken for a day after his interview with the Rangers.

Five days had passed since and Hermann was secretly pleased to be sitting down with Amara in the mess. Like Newt, his alone time was almost non-existent and, while it was both a desire and a necessity, they both needed a break. Newton had left for his second scheduled therapist’s appointment this morning in a foul mood, the pair of them screaming in rapid German and English as Newt stormed out into the waiting patrol of guards assigned to deliver him to therapy.

The close quarters had driven them mad in the lab, and the apartment was worse. Hermann tended to enjoy the closeness more often than not, reminding him that Newt was _here, safe,_ but Newt pushed and poked and snapped with more frequency, his edges sharpening and becoming hard as the days passed. In his mind, Hermann said the right things. _I know you feel guilty,_ _I know you feel scared and it hurts, but I’m here when you need to talk._ In reality, he found himself hissing insults when Newt turned his back, and staying up late into the night to regret it.

It felt like Newt had taken a step towards him and then staggered back, wounded and suspicious. Hermann wanted to blame the interview with Lambert, but doubt chased him regardless. _I haven’t done enough._ He wished he could Drift with Newt again just to figure out what was going in that mind of his.

“Doctor Gottlieb, are you listening?”

Hermann jumped, and this time his water did spill. He cursed in German and then corrected himself, the English curse still slipping out unchecked as he dabbed at the liquid. Amara stared at him with wide eyes.

“When was the last time you slept?”

“It’s been a while,” Hermann admitted and then rolled his eyes at himself. He hadn’t meant to admit it, not when Newt would no doubt take the blame, but Amara didn’t comment. “I’ve been very busy, I’m sorry I’ve not been able to answer any of your questions.”

“No worries,” Amara said. She really did remind Hermann of Newt and his easy going energy. At least, when he wasn’t screaming insults like a banshee. “I just wanted to meet because I, well, everyone really, needs a favour. You’ve not been at the lab-”

“I can’t very well bring Newton to the lab with me Ms Namani,” Hermann reminded her.

“Yeah, obviously, which is why I thought I’d ask you while you had the chance. It’s kind of important, but, like, no one else can do it.” Hermann scoffed at that. He’d heard that a thousand times during the war and the ego boost had long since worn off.  

“Has Jake said anything about it?” Amara asked. Hermann shook his head, watching two engineers by the food counter with mild interest. One of them was tipping scoops of mashed potato onto the other’s plate, the supply having run out on the serving desk. He wondered if they were Drift compatible, and just didn’t know it.

“I guess he’s been busy too,” Amara continued, “Well, there’s something wrong with the coding for the Jaeger repairs.”

That caught Hermann’s attention, his eyes snapping back to her. She didn’t look overly concerned but she looked tired enough to suggest that the issue was becoming a hindrance.

“Wrong how?” Hermann said shortly, “There’s nothing wrong with the code, I checked it myself.”

“I don’t know, it’s nothing that I could catch. It’s just… weird. Sometimes we install the neural circuits and they’re fine, and then sometimes they just go nuts. It totally destroys everything, everything shuts down.”

Hermann frowned. A heavy feeling settled in his stomach. There was nothing to suggest intentional error or, worse, sabotage, but the code had been perfect when he left it. Had _always_ been perfect. While the most recent developments had been incredibly minor, his attentions entirely consumed by his responsibilities to Newton, they’d been simple enough that they were manageable even with only a fraction of his attention.

For a guilty, heart-stopping moment, his mind flickered to Newton. The red glow of the subroutine initiation burned in his brain and he instantly began cataloguing even the smallest moment that Newton had spent alone since he was home. He hadn’t left the apartment since last week, the day after their meeting with the Rangers. It had been his first therapy session since his return; and it had not gone well, but he’d been watched there and back. The only other moments had been at night and Hermann had ensured to keep his door locked. Newt had practically been under house arrest, far from the Jaegers.

The momentary lapse of faith poured shame into his chest. “I wouldn’t put it past those engineers to have incorrectly installed the drivers.”

Amara raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, well, fortunately us engineers can take a bit of criticism.”

Hermann blanched, wincing. “Ah. My apologies, Amara, I forgot that-”

Amara snorted. “Someone’s gotta help fix this mess,” she said, “And it’s cool. Just don’t come running to me if your TV breaks.”

Hermann tried to smile, pushing some of his food around his plate. He didn’t feel hungry, despite having barely eaten breakfast. Mostly, he just felt tired, and anxious in a way that he couldn’t pinpoint. He looked at the digital clock on the wall over Amara’s head; another twenty minutes until Newton was due to be picked up from his appointment. An ugly unwillingness bubbled in him, a grey feeling that left a sour taste in his mouth.

“So, will you take a look at it?” Amara pressed. Hermann nodded, pleased somewhere in his cluttered mind to have made her smile. His eyes flicked once more to the time and Amara rolled her eyes.

“Oh my God, it’s like you’re in school!” Amara exclaimed, “You know if I’m boring you, you can totally go.”

Hermann spluttered, feeling his face heat a little. “That’s not – I’m sorry if that’s the impression I… I was just-”

Amara made a sympathetic face, her mouth curling in a comforting smile. Hermann sighed. He rarely left the apartment, but when he did, that same face seemed to greet him wherever he went. _How awful it must be,_ they seemed to say, _to live with the monster._ He’d heard that phrase whispered in every corner and seen it in the way they had looked at Newt in the corridors. Hermann tried to think of Newt’s face, his smile, the way his cheek bunched under his hand when he fell asleep leaning on his lab table. He tried not to think about his hands around his neck.

“How is he?” Amara asked. Hermann paused. He wished he could be honest, but honesty involved talking about the nightmares, the hours he spent wanting to cry because Newt was staring at the wall and wouldn’t just _look at him please_ , how Newt couldn’t remember what his PhD specialties were sometimes or how often he stumbled when reading. Honesty would be to admit that, maybe, he was losing the only man he’d ever understood like he understood himself.

“He’s not so well,” Hermann said flatly. Amara nodded, prompting, but Hermann just gave a deflated wave of his hand. “The Precursors were in his mind for a very long time, there’s a great deal of damage.” 

“I’m sure he’ll get better, you’ll see.” She watched Hermann’s dejected nod. His tongue flicked out like he was considering biting his lip but thought better of it. She was sure she’d seen Newt do the same thing a week ago, in the corridor.

“You were Drift partners right?”

Hermann nodded.

“Then you know I’m right, otherwise you wouldn’t be doing all of this. I don’t really know Dr Geiszler but when I Drifted with Jake, it was – it was really weird. Like, I could see loads of stuff I never even thought about asking him, and it was the same with me,” she gave a little shrug, “He kinda saw too much. But if you two have Drifted too, then you probably know deep down if he’s got what he needs to get better. If you’re doing all of this, you must have seen something pretty special, right?”

Hermann stilled as she spoke, letting her voice sink into his bones. His pride wouldn’t let him cry right here in the dining hall, but prickles heated behind his eyes unbidden and he pushed a hand against them, hard. Newt’s mind had been so different when they’d Drifted again, and yet…

“Yes,” Hermann said, “He’s… his mind is something quite remarkable.”

He pointedly ignored the way Amara beamed at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short one this time, it's been a long week... Thanks to everyone who's stayed with me this far, you're amazing!


	19. Watch it all burn

Newt’s eyes felt raw as he sulked back into the apartment, slamming the door on the armed guards following close behind him. He knew that if he looked in a mirror, he’d see how red-rimmed and swollen they were from crying and he scowled, silently cursing the therapist. He knew crying was supposed to be a good thing, he’d had enough therapy to know that even before the Precursors, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. ‘Recovery’ was a bitch.

‘Recovery’ also seemed ridiculously impossible. At first Newt had gripped onto the belief that nothing could ever be _this_ bad; things could only get better. After ten years of mental captivity, only to be greeted with hallucinations and lost time, it seemed reasonable to assume that things would only improve. Newt hated himself a little bit more for even entertaining that. If the apocalypse had proved anything, it was that things could always, always get worse. _And then they can get better – we cancelled the apocalypse, remember?_ The hopeful voice in Newt’s brain sounded an awful lot like Hermann and he hoped it was just a sad co-dependency, and Hermann wasn’t actually getting the depressing dregs of Newt’s mind in his ear at all times.

Since therapy started, Newt’s thoughts had settled into jelly. What was at first confusion and pain settled into a mushy, intangible feeling of guilt and anxiety, a feeling that never went away and never lessened. He felt constantly sick in his stomach and whatever moments of clarity he had bounced around his skull in unwanted ways, knocking malicious thoughts out of shadowy corners so they dropped into view at inopportune moments. He didn’t need to be clearing the dishes and remember what Mako’s laugh sounded like, and how he’d never hear it again. He didn’t want to remember his hands around Hermann’s neck whenever he got within five feet of the man. Even when he fell asleep, it would be full of the Precursors, the off-kilter feeling of his body moving without his will.

Recovery could suck a dick, as far as he was concerned.

He didn’t tell Hermann any of this when he got home, however, puffy-eyed and tired. Hermann, as always, was already waiting for him, making something in the kitchen but Newt went straight into the bathroom to wash his face.

“Newt?” He heard Hermann call after him as he slammed the door closed but he ignored it, running the tap and throwing water over his face. The cold hit him like a harsh slap and ugly anger flared inside him. Heat seared around his veins at breakneck speed, furious adrenaline making his skin sing. _It’s not fair._ The shout of frustration left him without his consent and his hand seemed to move on its own accord as he slammed his palm into the wall above the sink. There wasn’t a mirror – too much chance of it being smashed into a weapon – and that in itself felt like adding salt to the wound. He snarled, breath coming fast and the sting of the blow rippling up and down his arm. He _hated_ this.

“I’m not getting better,” he whispered angrily, “I’m not getting better and I never will, you don’t deserve to get better you goddamn, murdering-”

“Newton?”

Newt choked back a sob, frustrated tears clogging his throat for the second time that day. Hermann was outside the door and had probably heard the shout. He imagined him leaning on his cane to tilt his ear to the bathroom. He couldn’t decide if he imagined Hermann’s expression as mildly reproachful or uncharacteristically gentle, so Newt jumped straight to ‘probably annoyed’. It wasn’t fair but Newt was too tired to give a damn.

“Go away Hermann,” Newt said.

“I made dinner. I just want to help.”

_Goddamn it_. How the hell did Hermann always know exactly what to say? Was there some kind of mathematical formula for it? Even out of an argument, he knew which buttons to press and, for a reason that confounded Newt, it infuriated him.

“Fuck off Hermann,” Newt snarled viciously.

There was a shuffling sound behind the door and guilt flooded Newt’s stomach so fast that he almost vomited. He hadn’t meant to sound so angry, so hateful, but it had just come out. Against his will.

His anger crumpled and a genuine sob tore at his throat as his knees gave out, sending him careening to the ground. He hit the tiles hard, pushing back to curl against the door like a frightened dog. It took him a second to find his voice again, lost as it was in inky confusion.

“I just want to be me again,” he found himself saying eventually, “I just- I want to d-decide what I do, I _can’t_ -”

He didn’t manage to finish the sentence but it didn’t matter, it wasn’t for Hermann, it wasn’t even for himself. It was just for the silence and the space where the Precursors once listened, the blank wall they rented out that wouldn’t be filled again, leaving Newt half a person and half… whatever this was. The emptiness felt so vast and bottomless that he couldn’t figure out how he’d lived before it. How had he controlled so much of himself? Was that what Hermann had meant when they first met and had declared him ‘too much’?

He heard a small thud in his periphery and wondered if Hermann was still there. He hadn’t tried the handle, despite the door not having a lock, and Newt appreciated that. He hadn’t had nightmare-free space to himself in a long time, but Hermann was willing to allow him it, even after everything Newt had done.

His panic began to calm, his breaths slowing and he tilted his head back to rest on the door. He blew out a shaky sigh, holding his shaking hands in front of him to watch the way they shuddered.

“I want to be in control again,” Newton admitted to no-one in particular. He didn’t hear a response and wondered if perhaps Hermann had left, maybe to get some muscled help for the lunatic in his bathroom. The idea curdled in Newt’s stomach.

“I want to be me again,” he repeated. It sounded like such a small desire but it seemed laughably impossible.

He sat in silence for a long moment as his heart rate slowed and the tension seeped out of his muscles. While it didn’t feel wholly like himself, nothing had felt like that in years, it felt nice to no longer hold some of the tightness in his shoulders. He wasn’t sure what therapy was doing to his head, but it never failed to tense up his neck like nobody’s business. It was after a minute of certainty in the fact that Hermann had left that he heard a clear, firm voice from outside.

“I can’t help you from behind a closed door, Newt, I need you to let me in. One cannot parse variable solutions without being able to analyse the subject.”

Hermann sounded like he was right against the door.

“I’m not one of your equations,” Newt mumbled, although the tone came out more gentle than he’d intended.  

“No. You’re a good man and, more significantly, my friend. I am trying to say that I don’t understand how you are feeling, nor do I know how the sessions are interacting with that, but I know they are causing… stress. I… I think you need some physical affection and… and therefore I would like to come in. If you agree, of course.” It was awkward, much more so than Hermann’s rushed, apologetic prelude to his hug outside the elevator at Shao Industries, but it was undeniably sincere. Newt didn’t blame him for his awkwardness; he’d be weird too if the last request for a hug had later been met with a homicide attempt, but there was no trace of apprehension or blame for that particular outcome in Hermann’s voice. He sounded more worried that Newt might simply ignore him and remain against the door. Which would be a dick move, in Newt’s opinion.

Deciding that he might be a murderous, world-ending monster but not a total dick, Newt pushed himself up and, with his breath held, opened the door. As expected, Hermann was behind it, his face uncritical and calm, but his shoulders hunched high in trepidation. Newt felt the wind blow out of his body. He’d never needed anything as much in his whole life as Hermann’s knowing expression and his stupid, calm, soft eyes. Cool relief dripped into him. Impossibly, a smile ghosted into his expression as he collapsed forward into Hermann’s chest. Hermann made a surprised sound as Newt collided with him quite heavily, but rocked back into the hug, wrapping an arm around Newt’s shoulders.

Newt buried his head into the ridiculous, scratchy blazer.

“Since we never, like, actually say it dude, I’m _really_ glad we’re friends,” Newt croaked, his throat aching like he was going to really start crying, “Like out of all the things I could… I can’t believe it’s been about a thousand years and we saved the world and then I tried to kill everything including you and _then_ we finally fucking say it, that’s totally crazy. We’re both total idiots.” Hermann scoffed.

“I try to help and you call me an idiot. Charming,” he said gently.

“Yeah, that’s my name, dude, don’t wear it out.” Newt could almost feel the eye roll from where his head was tucked beneath Hermann’s chin, but Hermann didn’t break the embrace and Newt didn’t feel inclined to either. Everything still hurt, he still felt achy in his neck and his chest and in every single part of his brain, but it at least felt a little dimmer. He didn’t know why Hermann was still here, why he stuck around and didn’t hate him like he should, but in his weakest moments, Newt didn’t care. Hermann was here and something about that felt so right that it filled a little bit of the obsessively empty space in his brain.

“It was kind of a bad session,” Newt admitted into the fabric, “And kind of, you know, I hate everything in general and feel bad all the time. That kind of thing. It’s cool, I just-”

“It’s not ‘cool’”

“Yeah but there’s nothing I can do to fix it so… y’know?”

“You _are_ doing things to fix it, give it time.” Newt didn’t respond to that. Hermann sounded altogether too much like his therapist and not enough like himself so Newt just wrinkled his nose. He didn’t particularly want to pull back from the hug but the anxious voice in his head was warning him of Hermann’s patience and probably his leg too, so he backed up. Hermann didn’t look particularly annoyed or uncomfortable, however, and Newt instantly regretted disentangling from him.

“Sorry I freaked out,” Newt said. Hermann simply rolled his eyes and _that_ felt more like the Hermann he knew, so he grinned shakily and, to the satisfaction of his soul, Hermann smiled back.  
  


* * *

 

   
Hermann kept a keen eye on Newt over dinner. He hadn’t shown it, but the incident earlier had shaken him, and it had taken all his energy not to pound on the bathroom door until it opened. He raked an eye over Newt as he tucked into the asparagus on his plate, noting how skinny he still looked and the stark contrast of blotchy red and white on his face. Newt seemed to have settled after his terrible session but refused to talk about it; and all Hermann had done was offer a hug? He worried at his lip, berating himself mentally. He was a scientist and one of the smartest men on Earth and the best thing he could come up with was to stand awkwardly by the door until Newton emerged. He felt ridiculous and helpless in equal measures but he refused to let the feeling sour the mood. Newt was eating, at least, and was chatting more than usual.

He was just listening to Newt launch into an explanation of why some people were unable to smell what he called ‘asparagus pee’ when they felt it. The ground shook for a moment, like the start of an earthquake, and then settled. Hermann looked up from his food. A rumble could be heard in the distance, even through the metal door of the apartment, and the unmistakable screech and slam of metal echoed throughout the Dome.

Hermann froze, fork in mid-air. He glanced at Newt, who was similarly wide-eyed and stock-still, though he looked markedly worse. The instantaneous shake in his hand was perceptible and Hermann made a mental note to keep an eye out for that particular little tic.

“Er… what was that?” Newt said. Hermann was already standing and on his way to the door. He could see Newt racing to follow him in his periphery, but he didn’t bother to tell him to stay – he’d never listen anyway. Together they barrelled out of the room. The men outside looked shaken too and they looked from Newt to Hermann with confused looks before following them quickly down the hall to the source of the noise.

When they arrived at the Jaeger yard, it was chaos.

The noise and earth-shaking impacts had only increased as they made their way there. Heat greeted them instantly, squeezing at Hermann’s throat from the destroyed Jaeger that was sprawled across the ground. It had fallen, face first, with an impact that had cracked the tarmac into spider webs, flames engulfing its heart and the backs of its legs with frightening ferocity. Another Jaeger was leaning, the support structure between the pair of them now ruined, and another had been deployed in an attempt to steady it.

The screaming was what hit Hermann next. A man was crying out somewhere and it took Hermann a second to locate it. Eventually he spotted an engineer, the one he vaguely recognised as one of the Drift connected pair in the mess hall, being pulled from the Jaeger wreckage. His friend was desperately pulling him out, hands clawing at his arms in abject panic. Hermann almost staggered back in horror, but jumped when he felt Newt’s hand catch his elbow, keeping him in place as a stretcher passed close behind them.

On it, was the unmoving body of Amara Namani.

Another pilot, a young woman with blonde hair was running alongside the stretcher, holding Amara’s hand, though the injured girl was unresponsive. The sight of Amara’s prone body was like a kick in the chest and Hermann wasn’t sure what sound he emitted until he felt Newt’s hand tighten on his arm.

“Hermann-”

Something collapsed from the leaning Jaeger and fell with a thunderous slam to the ground, cutting Newt off. Voices rose up louder and people began running to help. Hermann grabbed a pilot as they passed.

“What the hell is going on here?”

“One of the Jaegers suddenly went nuts, started moving without anybody piloting it!” the man said, breathless, “Started moving and then toppled.” Hermann felt Newt recoil, his hand leaving Hermann’s arm.  

“And Ms Namani?”

“She was on the struts, I think, would have thrown her like twenty feet.” The pilot didn’t stick around but Hermann felt too weak to stop him, the colour draining from his face _._ Jaegers didn’t move without a pilot. It was _impossible._ He spotted Jake and Lambert in the fray of the burning Jaeger, the obscuring heat billowing around them as they tried to coordinate the chaos.

The Jaegers creaked and groaned in their holdings like mourning ghosts. The toppled fighter lay silent and heavy amidst the screaming.

With cold sweat prickling on his neck and horror sinking into his gut, Hermann turned to Newt.

But Newt was no longer there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> iS HerMANn OuT oF CHaRaCTEr iN thIS?   
> Also, goddamn it, I’m trying to keep romance out of it for now but wow, these two are so in love no matter what I do, it’s crazy 
> 
>  
> 
> I always wonder if I’m writing in an echo chamber for small fandoms cos feedback is so rare, which is why I wanna give a quick shout out to squireofgeekdom for your undying, wonderful, thoughtful support on this fic! <3 I keep writing this cos I really enjoy it but reading comments always makes me so happy :)


	20. At the brink

Hermann could hear the pounding of his heart over the roar of flames and shouts in the decimated Jaeger yard. He scanned around, noting their entourage had run to aid an injured technician and had left Newt unattended. And now, he was gone.

Panic seized Hermann’s chest, a thousand scenarios playing out in his head. The first thought made him flush with shame, the phantom feeling of a hand around his neck and a red glow on the backs of his eyelids. Newt was alone in the Shatterdome. He took another frantic look around, but found no trace of him, the chaos too dense to offer any solace in the discovery.

His skin prickled with heat and the nauseous danger leaking through the Drift connection.

As he turned to stride from the yard, his eyes happened to catch on Jake, who had spotted him from across the wreckage. A flick of his eyes to Hermann’s side, and his expression faltered. Hermann shook his head in a stilted, pleading movement and didn’t wait for Jake’s response; he could only trust that the Ranger would give him a few moments head start before the alarm was raised and Newton became the most wanted man on the PPDC watch list. The absence at his side, as prominent as it had been for the past ten years, stung and the hollowed out hole in Hermann’s heart grew as he considered, for just a moment, the possibility that Newt had run away for good or – or much, much worse.

He almost dreaded finding Newton as much as he desperately needed it.

His leg seared, panic splintering his nerves like eggshells. He hurried to the lab first, instinct pulling him there without thinking but the room was dark and desolate; although not quite lifeless. With a jolt, he found a familiar glow and a low hum of noise that still turned his stomach.

Alice’s tank had been moved to the lab.

The realisation curdled his panic into disgust before it flared again with a renewed fervour. Whoever had moved Alice here had no forethought for Newton, unless – Unless…. Hermann didn’t want to think about it. Newton was his own man again, he was Hermann’s Newt again, he wasn’t –

He scowled at the tank, wishing he could smash it into a thousand pieces before he left but there wasn’t time. Nothing in LOCCENT. Nothing in the mess hall. Hermann could feel frantic tears prickling his eyes as helplessness swelled over him. _Not again. I won’t lose him again. I can’t._ He could feel the start of sincere, bodily panic beginnin to fire up inside him as his breath quickened and he squeezed his eyes shut. There was a logical way to find him, there was never a cause for wild speculation without fact but the darkness behind his eyelids didn’t soothe the sparks of terror in his stomach, he had to get out of here, get _out_ -

Out.

Hermann blinked his eyes open, the nausea cooling for a moment. The front entrance of the Dome was impenetrable, and the loading bays were crawling with people; there was no way to exit the noise and bustle of the Shatterdome without being seen. But there had always been one way to get out into the air when the lab had been too stifling with the smell of Kaiju fluids and bitterness, even when the war had been at its height. Newton had, in fact, found it and while Hermann had never thanked him for the discovery, it was to his mind the finest one he’d made; apocalypse averting science be damned.

His step was less hurried as he made his way back towards the lab, diverting to follow the string of loading docks along the perimeter line. If Newton was where Hermann suspected, no-one was going to find him there. He felt ridiculous at not considering it before, since it was one of the only places one could genuinely hide at the Dome. Newt wasn’t naïve enough to believe his absence wouldn’t instigate a high-priority search, but his lack of impulse control always did outweigh his common sense.

The little door was marked with a “Danger” sign that Newton had stolen long ago from some store room, much to Hermann’s chagrin. Admittedly, it did ensure privacy and no-one ever seemed to question it. It was entirely possible that it was simply down to courtesy, a little bit of privacy for two stressed-out scientists at the end of their tether but Hermann was glad of it all the same. As usual, the door was unlocked when he tried it, but the opening push was difficult, the whip of wind barricading the exit like a jealous owner.

He spilled out into the air with a frustrated grunt, his cane clanging on the rusted iron floor. Once an engineering platform for the construction of the Dome, the tiny jut of rickety metal was the only blemish on the sheer Shatterdome wall, hundreds of feet above the black swirl of the ocean. It was more and more unsafe by the year, monumentally risky for the last two PPDC scientists and would have given Pentecost a heart attack if he knew they had spent silent breaks out here, sometimes swapping relieved glances at the instant drop of tension from their shoulders, sometimes swapping a solitary cigarette that they would never discuss again.

Hermann’s heart had always raced for entirely different reasons; the view across the Pacific, as deadly and beautiful as ever, and the soft, relaxed look in Newton’s eyes that he never saw inside the Dome.

His heart skipped a beat for an entirely different reason as he stepped out once more. Newt was pressed so close to the railings that his chest was tilted over it, eyes fixated on the long drop below him. Hermann’s let out an involuntary cry before he could stop it. Newt startled, jumping backwards with a force that rattled the metal ground and Hermann had to steady himself warily, eying the structure with distrust. It had, after all, been a decade since they’d been out here.

Newt, for his part, had the decency to look abashed, smiling apologetically. He shoved his hands in his pockets quickly but Hermann caught the way they were shaking.

“Worried I’d gone off to destroy the world again?” Newt chuckled nervously, but he sounded genuinely concerned, his eyes flicking to Hermann’s for a reaction. To his credit, Hermann didn’t give him anything to seize onto, despite the crushing fear tingling all the way down his spine and the fact that he could feel heat prickling at the back of his eyes. The only thing he could think about was Newt’s dream, that damn building, the lurch as he plummeted into the blackness below and – He wanted to throw up. Anger bubbled in him, inspired by the fact that Newt would even be here, goddamnit, because _why_? Why would he even think that Hermann wouldn’t come looking, how could he imagine that Hermann wouldn’t feel it like his soul being ripped from his body, taking anything he had left with it?

_Because you were inadequate for ten years. You never helped once._

The voice didn’t sound like his own, but he deserved it. The pain spread out like melted butter, less intense but so deep that it soaked into his bones.

“No, I was worried you might have wandered off and got lost,” Hermann said lightly, but he heard how ragged his voice sounded, “Or hurt.” Newt screwed his face up at that.

“Or,” he amended, “That I might never see you again.” Newt looked surprised at that, turning away to hide whatever emotion followed it. Hermann frowned.

“Don’t do that,” he snapped, “Stop turning away from me Newton Geiszler; I think I’ve been in your head enough to warrant an explanation. What do you think you’re playing at, running off like that? What on Earth were you doing out here? If the Rangers had-”

“I’m sorry.” Newt pressed against the railing again, too close for Hermann’s liking and he stepped forward, joining him at the edge. “I just… wanted to get out of there. I had to – I just… _Damn it_.” Tears were welling in Newt’s eyes and he scrubbed furiously at them with a sleeve as they dripped down his cheeks. Hermann looked away out of courtesy, fixing his eyes on the grey horizon. The sun was hidden behind the clouds, low and oppressive, turning the expanse beneath it into a broiling chaos of metallic waves.

“I looked at that girl, Amara, when she was on the – she was hurt real bad dude and I just, I could see Mako, you know? Like… God, I don’t even – _Mako,_ ” Newt was definitely crying harder now, his voice trembling with the stress, “I feel like, like every time I’m all fucking cried out, I just open up all over again and I didn’t even get to really see her for so long man, and it’s, oh God, it’s – it’s _my fault._ It’s my fault.”

The tear sliding down Hermann’s own cheek dripped to his jacket and he rubbed away the trail with a shaky hand. They’d survived so much, so very much, and _this_ was what they were left with. Millions of lives saved and they’d paid for each and every one of them, carried the weight of salvation on their backs with the reminder that _this_ was what survival meant. Atlas men, begging to be selfish.

“It’s not your fault, Newton,” Hermann said quietly. He was sure the words were lost to the thunder of the ocean beneath them, the beings beneath it swallowing them and churning them into lies in Newt’s mind. “Mako wasn’t your fault,” he said a little louder, “I… miss her. As much as you do, Newton. But you cannot do her the disservice of blaming yourself for her death. That isn’t what she would want for you.”

Newt didn’t respond, even long after Hermann expected him to speak, so he moved closer to him at the edge, wordlessly pressing one side of his body along Newt’s. On the days when the Kaiju came closer and the stars couldn’t be seen through smoke and ash, they had never spoken about how close they stood here, watching the world turn ever closer to the end, but they had both silently appreciated it all the same. Hermann could feel Newt’s trembling lessen slightly and his tears eventually stopped flowing. He gave a sigh, leaning a little into Hermann’s warmer clothing.

“It feels a little like the end of the world out here,” Newton said softly at last, his voice almost disappeared in the whip of the wind. Newton knew better than anyone what the end of the world looked like, but the thunderous crash of the waves and the swirl of salt wind resembled nothing like the dark rubble of the Bone Slums to Hermann, or the shattered glass world of Newt’s Tokyo. There was something solid and soothing about the swell. The swirling black was no longer a promise of monsters beneath, but an opportunity. He doubted Newton saw it like that.

“Well, we’ve managed the end of the world before,” Hermann replied, setting his cane against the railings and balancing his hands on the cold, damp metal. Newt nodded, his eyes casting back down to the drop below them.

“I wasn’t gonna… but I was kinda wondering if I’d die straight away if I fell from this far up.” Newt’s face was darkened by the grey sky, his expression unreadable. Hermann tried to make a mask of his own. He gripped the railing harder.

“That’s what the safety rail is for,” he said.

“Yeah, I know man, I just-”

“I know, Newton.” He leaned closer, the message clear. _Never go where you can’t take me with you. Not again._  

They stood in silence, eyes turned towards the roll of steadily blackening clouds sailing over the horizon. Thunder echoed like cannon fire in the distance but neither man moved.

“I like it up here,” Newt said eventually, “I doubt they’d ever let me back in a lab again but if they did…” He trailed off, the fantasy too impossible. All his life, he’d been a scientist and a scholar. To be stripped of that; it was the kind of loss no-one could understand.

Hermann’s breath hitched when Newt tilted his face upwards, the shape of the coastline winding its way into Newt’s soft eyes.

“I’d like to just, study sea life, you know? Like, marine biology after the Kaiju. There’s bound to be new discoverable species now, coming up from the lowest parts, where the plates have been disturbed. There could be giant octopus closer to the surface, that’d be cool, right? If they weren’t killed off by the temperature changes I mean.”

He sounded so much like his old self, so hopeful and amazed and _amazing_ that Hermann couldn’t resist placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. Newt looked up at him, a shaky smile on his face.

“It would be something,” Hermann agreed softly. Newt flushed, pulling his eyes away.

“I guess you’ll be going back to the lab again, huh? I mean, sometime soon.”

Hermann frowned. “We’ve been apart for too long already Newton, I’m not about to let you out of my sight again,” Hermann said and then, realising the implications of his words, said, “I mean to say that, as it stands, I am in no hurry to abandon your care for my own pursuits.”  

“But you can go back to science again. You’d be a total rock star, man.”

“Newton, I understand that you may find this… difficult to believe, and I perhaps have not made it easy, but I am not here out of any kind of obligation or – or debt, if that is what you think,” Hermann pressed. Newt stared dully at him and then, with a small half shrug that broke Hermann’s heart, turned away.

“Listen to me Newt,” Hermann snapped, in the tone that he knew would command Newt’s attention. He could feel him listening, even as his eyes continued to focus hard on the furthest reaches of the horizon.

“You have not ended here, Newt. The Precursors tried to remake you but they failed because you fought them, because you _are_ a good man. I know that what they took can never be replaced, and there are people that they took from us, I _know_ Newt, but they can’t take your future if you don’t allow it. You can’t stop fighting them now, you have to keep at it or they’ll win for good this time. You are too strong for that, you have too much to give to just hand it to them, Newt.” Hermann’s throat was scratchy with unshed tears and he was glad that Newt was refusing to meet his eyes because he could imagine how wrecked he looked, how gutted his expression might be. The ocean, new and different with each painful storm and powerful crash of its waves, reflected endlessly and beautiful in Newt’s gaze; a paradox to the red rim of tears in Hermann’s eyes.

“I’m really tired of fighting, dude.” Newt’s voice was barely a murmur. “I don’t even know what I’m fighting _for_ anymore.”

“I don’t need you to fight for anything but yourself,” Hermann replied, “But if you’re looking for someone to fight _with_ you, I am here, Newton. They still haven’t won and, well, now they have the both of _us_ to be very, very concerned about.”

The barest hint of a smile ghosted over Newt’s lips. “Are you threatening the alien controllers of the Kaiju hivemind, Dr Gottlieb?” he teased. Hermann managed a thin smile back.

“Perhaps I am. We are both, as I recall you saying, ‘rock stars’” he said the phrase with mild distaste. Newt snorted. He looked at Hermann with an unreadable expression, like he was recognising Hermann for the very first time.

“Promise me, Newton. Promise me you’ll keep fighting them.”

Newt nodded, slow but unmistakable. “And – and you’re in for the long haul too? Right?”

Hermann nodded and, with a humour he didn’t feel, held his fist out. Newt grinned, taking it firmly in his hand, cold from the steel.

The thunder rolled closer, wind splitting the waves into whirlpools like tiny breaches. Hermann dared them to come. His hand was twined with Newton’s as much as the universe had led his life to be. When the brink of the end came, he’d be standing firm on treacherous ground, finding courage in the wind-swept defiance of Newt’s crooked grin matching his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments are always appreciated :) Much love and have a great week!


	21. Waifs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you already know, I'm late! I'm really sorry guys - I started my new job this week, had comic con at the weekend (I cosplayed as Newt, of course!) and am flat hunting at the moment so it's all pretty hectic. My head wasn't in a writing space so this chapter was tough to get out this week. I'll be back to regular post schedule on Sunday, thanks for being patient!

“Amara is out of the infirmary.”

Newt raised his head from the toilet bowl, wiping his mouth with a sleeve. He looked truly dreadful, but a smile lit up his face nonetheless.

“Really? That’s awesome!” Hermann nodded in response, proffering a tissue and wrinkling his nose as Newt wiped both his nose and mouth with it.

“And I spoke with Jake. He’s not going to tell Lambert about your… excursion, so long as it doesn’t happen again. But as far as he’s concerned, we’re on probation. You’re lucky,” Hermann said. Newt laughed.

“Yeah, I feel it,” Newt said sarcastically, but sobered, “I can’t believe he’s the Marshall’s kid, I’d totally have been out on my ass with Pentecost.” Hermann hummed an agreement. He didn’t mention the hour he’d spent convincing, nigh on begging, the Ranger not to punish Newt. He himself had borne the brunt of the repercussions, managing to deflect only with the thin excuse that there had, in his defence, been a literal flaming Jaeger serving as a distraction.

They were both on incredibly thin ice.

As for Newt, he had been in the bathroom since Hermann woke up to sounds of retching, the door flung open to give Hermann an unsavoury view of Newt hunched over the toilet bowl.

“Nightmare,” is all Newt had responded when asked what was wrong, and Hermann hadn’t pressed for more than that. Newton was trembling and sick, but there was a lightness in his voice that wasn’t there most mornings.

The world hadn’t shifted greatly since the hour on the platform a few days ago, but Hermann had noted Newton’s re-energised efforts to keep going in everything he did. He sometimes caught him counting softly under his breath, slowly bringing his focus back in line, or the slight pauses whenever his conversation drifted into darker territory. It was slight, but to Hermann, it was a whole world of difference. It was something Hermann had always secretly admired about Newt; courage, simple and persistent in everything he believed in.

Newt stood, wobbling a little but shrugging off Hermann’s helpful hand with a light smile.

“I’m okay, just a bit shaky,” he admitted, “It’s good, I can handle it.”

“I would have woken you if I knew-”

“Seriously, it’s good, dude. Like, it sucks but – they’re just like Drift nightmares,” Newt said. He paused, fidgeting, “It was er… I thought – I dreamed that Alice was in my room. Like, the night I brought her – it – back and it was raining and – yeah,” he chuckled then, soft and low, “I never wanna see that brain ever again.”

Hermann’s mind flashed guiltily to the tank currently residing in the lab, the fact that he had still yet to request its removal. A month ago, he’d wanted nothing more than to smash it to pieces but now –

“I’ll make breakfast,” Hermann said.

 

* * *

 

 

Newt was trying. More than that, for the first time in a long time, he could honestly say that there was a spark of – something in his chest. Courage was too strong a word for it, nothing about puking into the toilet bowl at all hours of the morning felt particularly brave, but it was a start. And, while Newt knew Hermann disagreed with him on most things, it still surprised him that Hermann didn’t share his definition of bravery. Hermann stuck around the gross bathroom runs and the spacing out and nodded proudly when Newt stood up again on wobbly legs. It caught Newt by surprise.

What caught him more off-guard, however, was the slow, gnawing sensation that Hermann was keeping something from him. 

It was subtle, at first. There was nothing overt, nothing that anyone would notice if they didn’t live with him 24/7, if they hadn’t already been inside the mathematician’s head. There were pauses that Newt couldn’t place reason to, the kind of gaps that he had no idea how to fill. They never talked about the lab or Hermann’s work, but even the briefest mention of their once-home had Hermann freezing and glancing like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Most days, he put it down to the Ghost Drift. Sometimes Hermann would already be in the bathroom, looking pale, when Newt ran in after a particularly vivid dream. Sometimes he spoke to Newt like he was next to him, even when Newt was in the other room with the TV up. _It’s Ghost Drift,_ Newt told himself firmly. The silences, the thumps in the night like the pacing of Hermann’s cane, the way things disappeared without warning when Hermann forgot he’d moved them. A haunting of two, like waifs bound to the same home.

He’d never been closer to Hermann, and at the same time he’d never felt so lost inside his friend’s brain.

That thought woke him with a jolt in the night, a green glow still in his peripheral vision like an ectoplasmic haunt. He’d been dreaming about Amara, safe and out of the infirmary since this morning. The blank mask of her face had morphed into Mako’s, but her expression was disapproving in a way that she had never been in real life.

Newt sighed, rolling over in bed. He couldn’t feel Hermann in the back of his brain or hear him through the thin walls of their room. It was late, but Newt often heard the sounds of a cane pacing in the other room or traversing to the bathroom. He apparently slept about as well as Newt did.

The absence felt uncomfortable, a pull at the back of his mind that wouldn’t quiet.

“Don’t be so pathetic,” he mumbled to himself, “He’s asleep.” But the nagging feeling wouldn’t leave. He hated the dependency to be within Hermann’s near vicinity. He wanted to be able to live like he used to but the thought of losing Hermann in a crowd, or saying goodbye, or never seeing him again was more than he wanted to think about.

“Hermann?” Newt rose his voice a little, loud enough to be heard as a mumble through the thin walls. He felt utterly ridiculous. Hermann was probably asleep or in the bathroom, or he simply didn’t want to talk to Newt after every single nightmare he had. Guilt bubbled in his gut at the neediness that he couldn’t control. At the same time, panic began to grow. What if Hermann simply left? What if he figured Newt was better and just decided he didn’t need to be here anymore? Or what if the PPDC had found out about Newt’s absence the other day and would be storming in at any moment to arrest him? Or maybe he’d just got tired of looking after Newt. He couldn’t exactly say he’d been easy to deal with.  

The endless possibilities clamoured for attention so noisily that Newt was barely aware of how loudly he was rapping his knuckles on the wall. A knock always got Hermann’s attention, always told him _I’m sorry but_ please _I’m going to die if I stay in here, I’m scared, I’m alone, they’re_ here-

There was no answering knock. Silence filled the seconds that stretched like syrup, slick and slow and utterly impossible. Silence, but for Newt’s gasping, his throat contracting in panic.

“H-Hermann?” His gasps for breath were so loud that he was sure his chest would explode. Nothing was coming in, it was a painful staccato drag from beneath his ribcage that wasn’t _doing anything_ and – shit.

He rolled out of bed onto all fours, slamming his knees onto the metal floor with a silent cry. Passing out was a very real possibility right now, but the thought was vague and faint against the kaleidoscope of noise in his head. Thoughts shifted so quickly that he couldn’t grasp them fast enough, slipping from him with ease and then came the gut knowledge that he’d never have his own thoughts again, he was doomed, if he let himself go now then _they’d_ climb back into his brain and his mind would slip away again for good this time. The slide of thoughts was familiar in every second he spent with the Precursors, so disorientated and disassociated that fighting them was impossibly hard.

Newt clenched his fists against the cold ground and felt, with a startlingly calm wash of memory, the wrap of a firm, cold hand around his fist, salt air tangible on his tongue for a second. _You can do this_. The voice was both Hermann’s and his own, anchoring the kaleidoscope to a fixed point.

He heaved in a breath, a choked bark of relief erupting as air passed into his lungs. Determination bloomed in him as he sucked in air, forcing his body to accept the rhythm with each shaking intake. It steadied eventually, leaving him exhausted and hunched, but grinning tremulously. He staggered to his feet, swaying and lightheaded. If Hermann was asleep, he’d probably be pissed at Newt for waking him up, but he had to hear about this. He could already imagine the look on his face, the same look he’d give Newt during the war when he’d talked him through his panic attacks, but _better_.

He pushed open his door, unlocked as it often was now. Hermann had pursed his lips at the idea of continuing to lock Newt away, even after his escapade during the Jaeger yard incident. Newt treated it with trepidation, but was grateful for it now as he staggered out, opening Hermann’s door.

His smile, fragile as it was, faded instantly. Hermann wasn’t in his room. Newt frowned, casting around the living room and poking his head into the bathroom. Scratch that, Hermann wasn’t in the apartment.

Terror sharpened the air around Newt and he paced aimlessly from room to room for a minute, unsure of what to do.

“Herm?” Nothing.

He weighed up his options. It was possible that Hermann couldn’t sleep and had gone for a walk in the Dome, but that didn’t explain why the back of Newt’s brain felt so empty and cold. It was almost like –

He opened the door of the apartment, mouth open to address the guards but found that they weren’t there either. The corridor was suspiciously empty. It made sense that nobody else was around, Newt supposed, it was 4am in the Shatterdome after the Kaiju had gone after all, but the men at their room never left.  

He looked up and down the empty hallway, foot tapping nervously. If he was caught roaming the halls by himself at any time of the day, much less in the early hours of the morning, he’d go back to the cell he’d found himself in when he arrived. The thought prickled his skin with gooseflesh. He only remembered snatches of that room, but his face still flushed in humiliation at the memory of the smell, the uncomfortable feel of urine and vomit drying on him, the pain in his wrists that never went away.

But if he didn’t leave, he’d be taking the chance that Hermann might never come back. Even if he hadn’t simply got sick of looking after him, he could be in trouble, or hurt. He’d never known Hermann to fall, he was infuriatingly cat-like like that, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. He chewed his lip, considering.

His concern for Hermann outweighed his fear for himself and he set off down the corridor, destination already in mind. It was the only place he could think to go, the only place that still made sense in the warren of the Shatterdome after ten years away. He took the longest route, the one that fed through the deserted loading bays that were always deathly quiet after midnight, for fear of getting caught. It was eerie to walk through the darkened Dome at night now, rather than the thrill and warmth of padding through his odd home in the war. Now the walls were uninvitingly high and every shadow held memories he didn’t want to remember, every little hiding spot Mako had hid in as a child, a Kaiju specimen bay that Pentecost had found him in on one of his lowest days, the corridor he and Hermann had sat in during a power cut one time on their way back from the mess hall. Everything felt like a reel that had run its course on the projector, flapping aimlessly and imageless in rotation.

He made it to the lab undetected, slipping quickly inside. The lights were on and he had a brief moment to feel relief that Hermann was indeed here before he froze, blood turning to ice.

Hermann was here. As was Alice.

The glow of the tank spilled over Hermann’s form, the angular face cut into by shadows as he stood intently in front of the Kaiju tank. He didn’t notice Newt’s entrance, didn’t acknowledge anything but the brain before him. His eyes were focused but cold, the mottled flesh reflecting in them with a sickly glow.  

Newt struggled to formulate words in his mind, betrayal and shock piling up inside him, overridden by all-consuming fear that moistened his palms and beat heavily in his chest. He’d been living in the same building as that… he didn’t even know how to describe it anymore. He didn’t even want to look at it, anxiety and want and fear bubbling all at once in its presence. He stepped closer, against his better judgement, and kept his eyes on Hermann.

“Er… Hermann? What are you doing?”

Hermann blinked as if he hadn’t in days. His eyes looked dry and red, like he’d been sleepwalking with them open, but he looked like he’d been awake for a long time. He was still wearing his trousers and one of his most beat-up cardigans.

“I had a thought and came to investigate. If we were to find out how to take the fight to them, as such, it would be an end to this war for good,” Hermann said. He sounded like he was thinking aloud, working his thoughts through like math problems, but Newt felt a shudder run down his spine. He tried not to let himself fall into outright shakes as he remembered his own nights in front of the same glass. Suddenly the emptiness on Hermann’s side of the Drift, the hiding, all of it clicked into place.

“And… Alice is here, why? I’m pretty sure she’s – it’s not meant to be here, right?” Newt said. Hermann didn’t seem to hear him.

“Think about it Newton, we could get rid of the Precursors and the Kaiju for good.”

“Hermann, tell me you didn’t bring it here.”

“The Rangers wouldn’t have to wait for information, the risks of a single Drift wouldn’t outweigh-”

“Hermann!” Newt snapped, cutting him off. The Precursors were gone, they should be gone for good, but Newt wanted to cry because this made was starting to make sense and it wasn’t _fair_. Because he should have seen this coming, because of course nothing was ever simple with them, there always had to be something to ruin it.

“Don’t do it dude,” Newt said, “I know that look… they twist everything around. They make it seem like a good idea.”

“Oh for heaven’s - This isn’t _them,_ Newton and it _is_ a good idea,” Hermann argued, “I haven’t drifted alone with Alice, so the chances of me-”

“Hermann, stop it,” Newt said, “That’s not what I meant. You’ve been in _my_ head, dude, like, more than once. Precursors and all, and now you’re chained to my nightmares every night and tuning in to radio station crazy every day, hearing all the shit they ever said to me. Their stupid ghosts are in here with me _every day_ , of course you’d – you’ve got my thoughts in your head too. I saw Alice last night and I thought it was my dream but it wasn’t, was it?”

Hermann whirled around, scowling with a viciousness that took Newt by surprise.

“It _was_ your dream,” Hermann spat, “I’m not tuning into any of your thoughts Dr Geiszler, I’m perfectly within my right mind to think on my own.”

“Herm, _please_. You don’t think it’s possible? I can’t stop dreaming about Alice and I wake up tired all the time and she happens to be here? With you? You don’t see the pattern there?” he gives Hermann with a sceptical look, “You can say for sure that none of my dreams have crossed into yours? That you haven’t… haven’t heard voices that aren’t yours, or you’ve not heard _them_ in there? You’ve not seen anything nuts or – or… all the times you’ve forgotten things…”

To his credit, Hermann’s expression faltered. Newt seized on it.

 “This is how it started with me. At first I thought it wasn’t them, that it was all me and that it was a good idea but it’s not. They draw you in if you’re not… not strong enough…” Newton felt like he was getting dizzy and God, not another panic attack. But Hermann had to understand, had to realise that all the time he’d spent in Newt’s head was ruining both of them. That the Precursors had destroyed him already but now even their ghosts were taking Hermann from him too.  

“You’re acting on thoughts straight out of my head, Hermann, you’ve got an echo of every awful, stupid thought I think and I think about them all the time, dude. I still think how they think, sometimes, and I can’t help it,” Newt forced himself to say, “Every day I think about finding Alice again, or going to mess with the LOCCENT consoles or the Jaegers… or whatever they’d want to me to do back when I could hear them for real. And it’s just remnants, I know, but… but you’ve got that in your brain too, ever since the Drift/ I don’t act on any of that because I’ve had them in my head, I know what they sound like, but you _don’t_ Herm, so please, _please_ , listen to me. This isn’t you. This is my fault, just...”

He couldn’t finish the thought, his body so charged with adrenaline that his muscles ached with shaking. Everything he dreamed, everything his brain still told him day after day was in Hermann’s head too, subconscious and persistent, sabotage and hatred living under the surface without mercy. And now it was his fault for yet another screw up he’d never intended, it was his fault that Hermann was here. His fault as usual that Hermann could have been hurt, or killed. His thoughts and memories were the Precursors in Hermann’s mind, feeding him actions in his sleep and now they were… here.

The sum of all his fight and hope had led him to this point; shame and devastation chiselling the good from his world and turning everything to shattered glass.  

Hermann looked at Newt, who was pale with breathlessness, then at the sickly, pale yellow glow of the Kaiju tank. Alice bobbed lethargically, the tendrils wrapping themselves like vines around themselves, forming tiny traps in the liquid. He blinked like he was coming back from a daydream and warmth flooded the spaces in Newt’s head. Hermann shuddered.

“Let’s get out of here,” Hermann said quietly. He put a hand to Newt’s shoulder and gently led him away. The hairs on Newt’s neck raised as he turned his back on the kaiju tank. The remains of the Kaiju seemed to watch him leave even as the door slid shut behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Newt saving Hermann for once! I figured that the Precursors wouldn’t be able to reach Hermann since he didn’t Drift with them alone, but PRU suggests that he and Newt share nightmares and the Drift ensures shared memories of course – so how does Hermann cope with the echo of what Newt went through? I probably think waaay too deep into these things haha, but it keeps things interesting I hope!
> 
> 99.9% of the time, I usually only end up really liking maybe one sentence of a chapter I write and this chapter in particular was tough with my head being kind of out of the space for it. But hey, there’s a whole two sentences here that I like, so I am golden! 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who have read and commented and kudos-ed so far, you guys are AMAZING!!!


	22. A Secret of Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Post schedule? What post schedule? (At least this one is a day early rather than late for once!)

They sat silently in the living room for a long time, minutes ticking by awkwardly. A guard had been at the door when they arrived back, frowning at Newt with distrust.

“Where have you been?” Hermann had snapped, sending the man a look that made Newt wince. The guard, a young looking guy that Newt imagined had joined the PPDC pretty recently, blinked in confusion.

“You asked me to go to the infirmary? For doctor Geiszler’s medicine? You said he was, er, having a nightmare and you needed… Anyway, it was just one of the night nurses so I couldn’t get anything,” The poor dude looked pretty confused, especially at Hermann’s stricken expression.

“I said that.” Hermann said. It wasn’t really a question, but there was no resolution in the statement either.

“Yeah, I thought it was kind of weird but you said…” the guard teetered off once more, his eyes narrowing in suspicion, “You didn’t say you two were going anywhere. Where have you been?”

“For a walk,” Hermann said quickly, “I realised the infirmary would not be of use and Newton needed to be out of the apartment for a little while.”

“At 4am?”

“It was quite the nightmare,” Hermann countered, “Thank you for helping, all the same.” It was uncharacteristic for Hermann to give a warm thanks on any occasion, but the guard was evidently too new to appreciate that and puffed up all the same.

“I really shouldn’t leave you guys, just so you know. Next time I’ve gotta stay here,” the man replied, shrugging.

“That will be quite ideal, I think,” Hermann agreed, ushering Newt inside, “Thank you. Goodnight.”

Hermann closed the door behind them, Newt heading straight for the couch, tucking his hands beneath his thighs, shoulders hunched. The room was almost totally encased in darkness except from the glow of cold blue light from the strip of halogen by their kitchen stove. Hermann looked ghost-like as he came to join Newt, his face ethereal and distorted in the weird lighting. His eyes were wide and shell-shocked.   

The minutes dragged. Newt was sure neither of them had ever sat this long with each other and remained silent, but there was the static crackle of cognitions in Newt’s brain as he watched Hermann. Words bubbled inside him but he bit his tongue.

“I don’t recall that,” Hermann said eventually, voice flat and insular like he had quite forgotten that Newt was there. Newt chewed his lip. Hermann’s eyes flitted left to right like he was scanning equations on a chalkboard, his fingers twitching.

“Don’t freak out dude,” Newt said softly, his voice low. He remembered his own panic, the clutching grip in his stomach that had driven him close to the brink of insanity when he first realised that his actions weren’t his own.

“I don't recall telling the guard to leave. And I don’t remember going out tonight, either.”

Newt nodded, understanding but helpless. The man he thought the world of, the only person who’d spared a thought to save Newt when he was lost, looked lost himself. It was enough to spring tears into Newt’s eyes. It wasn’t fair. None of this was even close to fair, hadn’t he already been punished enough? He’d bargained himself, he’d bargained the world, but he’d never bet on losing Hermann. There was no point having himself back if Hermann was gone. He knew it was too much to ask of the universe, that he would never deserve quite so much for the little he’d given, but he’d barter himself if he needed. Hermann was never part of the deal.

“It’s not fair,” Newt said aloud, but it came out as a whisper that he wasn’t sure Hermann heard. Hermann looked up all the same, looking straight into Newt’s eyes with such a look of loss and confusion that Newt felt breathless.

“I’m so sorry Newton,” Hermann said. Newt shook his head but Hermann held up a quieting hand, eyes glittering in the distant glow of spectral blue. “I hallucinated. While you were in the infirmary. And since then, I have heard things that I do not believe are myself, but I kept it secret because I believed that such things would be distracting to your recovery.”

“Hermann, dude, how could you-”

“Please let me speak.”

“No, Hermann, that’s so fucking stupid man, how the hell-”

“Newton, please, allow me to speak.”

“You might as well have put up a ‘for rent’ sign in your brain for chrissakes, how stupid can you-”

“Newton, listen to me,” Hermann snapped, “I was foolish to hide those things but what's done, is done.” Newt wanted to argue with that but Hermann gave him a hard look.

“At first I was concerned it was the Precursors, yes, but the Precursors have no direct access to me. I concluded, as you now have, that it is the side effect from the Ghost Drift, echoes of your experiences, as such.”

 _As always, a step behind._ The words rang in Newt’s mind and he flinched, wrapping his arms around his stomach defensively. He’d been too late this time, Hermann had figured it out and suffered alone, just like he had.

“You should have told me,” Newt muttered.

“Yes, perhaps I should. I would have shared my concerns if I had known that I was… acting upon the thoughts I was having. But I had no evidence to suggest I had been. Until tonight I…” Hermann sucked in a shaky breath, “I don’t even remember going to the lab tonight, Newton. I don’t know if I have been there on other nights and if so, what I have done.”

Newt watched as Hermann’s eyes clouded suddenly with realisation. His face went slack, lips parting.

“Oh my… the Jaegers.”

Newt frowned. “What?”

“Amara told me that the codes for the Jaegers were incorrect. The codes _I_ programmed. And then a day later, the crash… It was _me_ ,” Hermann’s face was so pale that he looked like he was going to vomit and, for a second, Newt considered dashing to fetch a bowl. Hermann’s hand came to his mouth, his eyes closing, and he shuddered in a gasp. “I programmed their updates… I have access to their computers and…”

“Hermann, no, you can’t blame yourself for this dude,” Newt interjected.

“Who else do I blame, Newton?” Hermann snapped, hands shaking, “Who else do I blame when I, acting on nothing but – but _dreams_ and echoes and your static, almost _killed_ someone? How do I not blame myself?” His tone was harsh and self-loathing, and it washed over Newt with such a sudden swell of pain that he couldn’t quite trust himself to speak without his voice failing him. His lip trembled like a child’s when he dragged words out at last, jagged and quiet.

“Because it’ll kill you,” he said lowly, “Guilt like that. It’ll… it’ll eat away at you man. You didn’t hurt anyone, nobody was killed. Not like…” He trailed off and couldn’t help the single tear that rolled down his cheek. He rubbed at his eyes furiously, wiping others away. This wasn’t about him. For the first time in weeks, this wasn’t about him, it was about Hermann.

Hermann’s face softened instantly and he looked away, abashed. “I didn’t mean it like that, Newt,” he replied softly, “I hope you understand that I didn’t mean to say that I blame you in any way.”

“It’s not about me,” Newt reiterated.

“It’s about _us_. And in that respect, I was wrong to hide this from you. As much as you need me to be here for you, and as much as I am proud to be able to help you in any small way I can, I was wrong to assume that you couldn’t be present for me also. Had I told you earlier, this may never have happened. I was lucky that you were here to help me tonight,” Hermann said. Newt was glad for the low lighting, as a blush made its way up his neck. He’d felt so useless for so long, first in his impotence against the Precursors and since he’d got back his only contribution had been as a burden. Hell, he’d even managed to semi-inflict Precursor mind control on his best friend through the sheer force of his own nightmarish brain and yet here Hermann was, speaking as if Newt hadn’t almost completely ruined his life.

“Can I ask how you did it?” Hermann said quietly.

“Huh?”

“How did you… You never said anything, to anyone. Even when you moved to Shao Industries, how did you ever…”

“Live with getting my brains turned to scrambled egg?” Newt was part joking but the hollowed-out expression on Hermann’s face soured the air, the light tone falling flat.

“I didn’t even notice what I had done tonight until you woke me. And even then I have no idea what damage I have done since… I’m so very sorry Newton, I had no idea that I’d-”

“Hey, dude, it’s okay. I get it, remember? I spent months doing shit I had no idea I’d even done, I don’t even remember some  weeks, like one month I just-”

Newt was cut off as he felt Hermann’s arms wrap around him, firm and slow. He tensed under the unexpected movement. For a second he debated trying to wriggle out of the hold, the affection short-circuiting his brain, but there was a palpable, tear-inducing need in his gut. The warmth spreading in his chest outweighed every other sensation and he sagged, his hands reaching up to grip Hermann’s cardigan.

“No one will ever comprehend how brave you were, Newton,” he heard Hermann whisper, “I’m… I’m very proud of you.” The warmth in Newt’s chest turned to a burn and he choked back a sound.

 “Hermann, I was-”

“No. I had no idea what it felt like, or how you feel, but even that one moment in the lab – I would never have resisted like you did. It’s incredible that you’d even-”

“Herm-”

Hermann pulled back, taking the warmth with him, but the look on his face sent another shard of heat through Newt’s heart. Pride and affection brimmed in Hermann’s eyes, a hard shine against the breath-taking softness of his hair, mussed against Newt’s sweatshirt, and the curve of his cheekbones.

“I don’t deserve that,” Newt croaked, but Hermann frowned.

“Which of us was the one to brave the Kaiju Drift in the first place?” Hermann interjected. Newt scowled.

“Which one of was stupid enough to do it, you mean?” he corrected.

“Well, that too. And which one of us fought the Precursors for years and came out the other side?”

“I didn’t-”

“Which one of us was there tonight to save me from doing the same, despite my knowledge of the risks? And who is still, after everything, contributing to the protection of this base and the world at large?”

“Hermann-”

“Newt.” His brown eyes were steel even in the low light and Newt caught the shadowed reflection of himself in them, partially covered in shade. Half a person; but not filled in by the Precursors. Here, he was half himself, and half the hazel of Hermann’s eyes.

“Me,” he said softly.

“Precisely. You.” Hermann responded simply. Newt resisted the urge to repeat the sentiment, to roll it around on his tongue like a new taste. He suddenly felt teary and fragile and couldn’t place why, but it felt satisfying; like the sear of Hermann’s eyes when he’d told a joke or the rare moments he’d approved of Newt’s work in the lab. His whole body tingled with the need for warmth, for touch but he forced himself to hold back. The anxiety that curdled in his veins when he initiated contact with Hermann had yet to diminish, but he longed to feel at ease resting his side along Hermann’s, leg to leg, arm to arm like the mind of a Jaeger.

“We’ll keep an eye on each other,” Hermann said eventually, “I will not inform the Rangers for now, seeing as we are in a precarious position with Ranger Pentecost as it is, but I believe we must put precautions in place for such developments.”

“Such as?” Newt said, “It’s kind of an insane situation”.

“The best way to approach this would be together. Our best weapon is that there are two of us. We are apt to keep an eye on each other,” Hermann considered for a moment, glancing around the room with an appraising eye, “It would be suspicious of us to move our beds to the living room, but as it seems to be a situation driven primarily through the Ghost Drift, nighttimes are particularly perilous for… incidents. I would suggest we sleep somewhere where we can prevent the other from doing anything, well, out of the ordinary.”

Newt gaped. “Wait, wait, wait… You want to _sleep_ near me? Seriously? Dude, are you sure your brain isn't more scrambled than you think?”

“Do you have a better suggestion? If we raise the issue with the guards, they will most certainly inform the Rangers.” Newt blinked, trying process. He tried to imagine sleeping without the wall and closed doors between them but all he could think of was the phantom feel of his fingers closing unwillingly around Hermann’s neck. His breathing sped up against his will and he swallowed his panic down hard. He could imagine screaming both himself and Hermann awake multiple times a night, or Hermann being forced to ignore the way Newt cried himself to sleep.

“I don’t think it’s safe,” Newt said vaguely.

“And my sneaking around and sleepwalking is more so?” Hermann countered. Newt despised admitting it, but he had a point. As always seemed the case, they had limited options, limited resources, and no help. As usual, it was down to them. He shuddered.

“Fine.” Hermann nodded in approval, more smugly than Newt really appreciated. “I’ll move my bed, I guess, but I’m stealing a dresser drawer, I know you have more furniture than me,” Newt pouted, “And if you snore, I’m kicking you awake, dude.” 

Hermann chuckled and the sound was music to Newt’s ears. Hey, he may be a wannabe world destroyer and Precursor puppet, but he could still make Hermann Gottlieb laugh.  

“If snoring is the worst we have to contend with,” Hermann said, still smiling, “Then I won’t even complain when _you_ inevitably start.”

Newt shoved him lightly. Smiles on both their faces, even for just a moment.

 _Recovery Mission, Team Geiszler-Gottlieb 1, Precursors 0_ , Newt thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always for reading, reviews always welcomed!!! :)


	23. Bruises

The code was wrong, but only subtly so. To the uninformed eye, it was the mere slip of an exhausted mind; a few numbers wrong here and there with no foreseeable consequences.

They looked exactly like Hermann’s nightmares had in the war. Lines and lines of code, correct and tidy until… a single number, misplaced not by a lack of intellect but by sheer, stupid human error. Too many hours awake, too little to eat and drink; and someone’s life had been lost. The insidious nature of the mistakes were increased only by the fact that Hermann could not remember writing some of the lines at all.

He shivered, the lab cold enough to justify it, working quickly to rectify the program. Newt had gone to therapy early that morning, both of them amassing only an hour or two of fitful sleep in their separate bedrooms before morning broke painfully and, without a word, Newt slumped into Hermann’s room. The bed had followed soon after, Newt still remaining silent as he pushed it inside and folded the few clothes he owned into the drawer below Hermann’s.

“I still think this is a dumb idea,” was all he’d said, dragging his feet out of the door like a sulking child.

Hermann had headed to the lab as soon as Newt was out of the apartment, pausing only momentarily to centre himself. His plan was to rectify the Jaeger codes, check the remaining work and, if damn possible, destroy the wretched alien brain that had ruined both their lives before the afternoon was up. He went over the list in his head, scrutinising it again and again. Nothing world ending. Nothing dangerous. Nothing that would garner negative results for the PPDC or the world at large.

He wrote it down, just in case.

He worked without once glancing at the clock, his body and mind falling back into the habitual movements he associated with the lab. The ladders had been easier to climb ten years ago, but the maths was no less sharp, no less perfect. He had worried about the numbers failing in the war, but logic had always been truthful and without fear. Numbers couldn’t fail, only people could.

As the war dragged on, unending and ever more hopeless, his dreams had worsened but the numbers had begun to fade, the lines of code dropping to a distant wall that never left the back of his mind. His dreams shifted into ever more real scenarios, images that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Late at night, when the Shatterdome sounds span down into a quiet hum that reminded him of dark and speckled stars, Hermann hadn’t worried about himself. He’d stayed up, unable to sleep, thinking about the moment when a Kaiju finally broke through the defences and into the Dome - and it was Newt who died first, instead of him. The scenario where the last thing he ever saw was Newton dying; brilliant, dazzling, ridiculous Newton, before Hermann’s world too was snuffed out. It struck him one day that he wasn’t working so much for himself, but rather for the other man across the lab, behind the line that Hermann wouldn’t let himself cross.

“Doctor Gottlieb?”

Hermann jumped, his typing staggering to a halt at the crackle of the intercom. He checked the clock and blinked. He’d lost two hours. Had he been working? Did he know what he’d been working on? Did he – He took a breath, willing himself to calm. He knew exactly what work he’d done. He’d catalogued it all, checked every number. It was a loss of time, yes, but only to himself. He’d been lost in his own head, not in Newton’s.

“Doctor Gottlieb, you’re needed urgently,” the voice continued. Hermann rolled his eyes. He was always needed urgently. Newt was due back at the apartment in only a few minutes and he needed to be back for him; whatever it was would have to wait.

“Yes, yes, I understand,” Hermann dismissed, but the voice continued emphatically.

“Doctor Geiszler is in the infirmary. You need to come right away.”

Hermann forgot to breathe.

“E-Excuse me?”

“Doctor Geiszler is in the infirmary.”

Hermann’s heart clenched around a beat, kicking his ribcage with the force of a hammer. There was sweat already forming on his hands, making them clammy as he shut down the computer as fast as he could. He wanted to simply leave the damn thing, but it was too big a security risk to leave unattended.

“What’s happened?” he gritted out. The feeling of terror was so achingly familiar, the drop of his stomach in the moment he found Newt seizing on the ground years ago, the sick feeling in the back of his throat when he had seen Newt’s body tilted over the railing hundreds of feet above the sea. _Please, please God, he’s alive, he has to be._

“There’s been…an accident.” Hermann cut off an involuntary snarl at the words, the frustration and fear welling into a keening noise that never seemed to dull in his ears. He let the frustration carry him, grabbing his cane and marching from the room.

Alice, still watching, still languidly hovering in Hermann’s periphery, seemed to follow him with her tendrils as he moved past her. He sent it a glare.

“However he’s hurt,” Hermann growled, whether to the damned brain or whatever beings were listening on the other side of it, “You’re going to feel it a thousand times over.”

 

* * *

 

Hermann was sweating by the time he reached the infirmary, the sticky heat clinging to the back of his neck. One side of his body burned, the strain of moving too fast for too long with his cane. The medical centre was quiet, the only occupant being the technician Hermann had seen at the Jaeger yard and…

Newton was sat on the edge of the furthest bed, his head hung down in one of his hands. Dr Linda was at his side, applying stitches to somewhere in his hairline, frowning in concentration.

“What happened?” Hermann demanded as he came close. Newt jumped at the sudden noise, knocking the doctor’s hand and earning him a scowl. Hermann winced guiltily.  His expression quickly changed to one of shock, however, when he caught sight of Newt’s face.

Although he was doing his level best to hide it from Hermann, ducking his head and tucking himself in small, Hermann could see the brutal black eye he was sporting. There was blood caked high in his hairline and he was pretty certain that if Newt looked up, he’d see a bloodied nose too. Hermann trailed his eyes down, noting the hunch in Newt’s stature, but it was impossible to see any other damage beneath his long-sleeved layers.

“What happened?” Hermann repeated, quiet and low. The guard, the young man that had been there for the early morning shift, stepped in sheepishly. Hermann noted the bruising on his face, too, and didn’t stop himself from assuming the worst. He bit his tongue as the man spoke.

“We were on our way back to the apartment,” he explained, “And.. we ran into some trouble.”

“What kind of trouble, exactly?” The guard shifted on his feet.

“Er… well, some Jaeger pilots were coming the other way and they… well, there was a commotion. I stepped in as fast as I could, but there were three of them and only one of me because Dan had gone to get help, so-”

Hermann’s temper flared and he bristled, ignoring the way Newt looked up at him with tired trepidation. There was blood on his nose, after all. And a split lip for good measure it seemed.

“What on _Earth_ do you mean by that?” Hermann spat, “You mean that three Jaeger pilots, three _PPDC employees_ , did this?” The guard nodded. Hermann was sure he’d never flown off the handle quite so quickly in all his life, and he’d spent years in a lab with Newton Geiszler.

“I want their names and I want their assignments, _immediately._ It’s a disgrace, an absolute disgrace, they should be fired. They should be arrested, for assault,” he snarled, “And as for you-” He intended to round on the guard, his teeth bared and ready to spit poison, but Newt reached a hand out and placed it softly on Hermann’s arm. He flinched when he realised that it too had a splatter of blood on it.

“Dude, it’s okay,” Newt said, his voice sounding scratched raw, “Matt totally tried, he got socked in the jaw and everything, he was straight in there. It’s not his fault.” Hermann scowled, looking from Newt’s beaten face to the guard. Matt, probably short for Matthew because Newton never, ever adhered to formality. His anger softened a little, involuntarily. Trust Newt to make a friend of the person guarding him. Trust Newton to stand up for him, after being pummelled by three men. And, of course, Newt was always so blasé about fights with the pilots even before all of this.

“I want their names,” Hermann repeated to Matt, who nodded gravely. His youth made the gesture seem overly sincere and Hermann rolled his eyes, sighing. He looked to the doctor, who was finishing her work with a raised eyebrow.

“No concussion,” she said, “Just a lot of bruises, some bruising especially to his ribs and a good solid cut on the forehead, here. The nosebleed would be a cause for concern if not for the already weakened nasal cavity; it looks like Newt has a pretty solid connection between his brain and his nose.” She smiled knowingly at Newt, fondness in the gesture and Newt managed a crooked smile back, despite the way it pulled taut on the split of his lip. A flare of something ugly bubbled in Hermann’s stomach and he pushed it down with a grimace. Newt needed friends, now more than ever.

“He’ll need watching, make sure his ribs are taped but that’s happening anyway so he should be perfectly fine. He’s been fortunate not to break a bone,” Dr Linda said, “I can get him some medication but besides that it’s just Band-Aids and bandages.”

“Thank you,” Hermann nodded as she busied herself with a prescription. He looked back at Newt, his head sunk low, his mouth an unhappy, bloodied line. He was in obvious pain, and Hermann imagined that there wasn’t a place in his body that wasn’t battered.

“Are you alright?” he said gently. Newt didn’t look up but shrugged tiredly.

“I don’t really remember that much,” he admitted, “It happened like, crazy fast. Like, one second I was walking and the next I was on the floor. Matt was super great, dude, he was in there so fast; if he hadn’t, I don’t know if… Anyways.” He trailed off lamely, a flicker of darkness crossing his eyes like a shadow. Hermann shuddered to think about it.

Newt’s eyes flicked up to meet his as he muttered, “I didn’t really catch much, like I was sorta focused on not getting a bunch of bones broken and stuff, but they were yelling at me loads. They said it was, er… you know, mostly ‘cos of… the incident?” Hermann blinked dumbly in response. Newt rolled his eyes.

“The Jaeger thing? In the yard? They… they thought I’d done it, alright?” Newt clarified, “Which is like a totally valid assumption considering, it’s actually kinda what everyone must be thinking, I mean, _I_ thought it was me for a bit y’know, but obviously…” He looked at Matthew, who was being saddled with several boxes of medications and bandages, then back to Hermann. The implication was clear but unspoken.

“I’m so sorry Newton,” Hermann said.

“No, dude, it’s okay, really-”

“It’s my fault. The crash and – and this. You’re being blamed for something _I_ did. You’ve been _hurt_ because of what I did.”

“Yeah but it’s not like anyone can know that,” Newt countered, “We’d both be in kinda huge trouble if anyone did. So like, yeah. It’s cool, seriously, it’s not like this wasn’t a long time coming anyways, everybody here hates my guts, ‘sides you. Not that I blame them, or anything, I did kind of-”

“The Precursors did all of that,” Hermann reminded him, before Newt finished that train of thought, “And they ought to have enough sense and understanding to know it.”

“I killed their-” Newt stopped, biting his words back with a visible snap of his jaw. His face was creased in frustration, the anger of being unable to deride himself warring with the exhaustion he knew would follow such an argument. It was perhaps the thing they argued about most these days, Hermann making a point to consistently remind Newt that he was not to blame.

Hermann nodded, satisfied, but placed a hand on Newt’s arm in quiet reward. He didn’t know if the physical contact helped in any way, and there was now the added risk of agitating whatever bruises marred Newt’s tattoos beneath his sleeves, but Newt didn’t pull away. Instead, the tension in his shoulders relaxed a little and he dropped his head with a gentle puff of a sigh. There was a tremor in his arm that Hermann only noticed by touch, but he could now see the gentle shake in Newt’s hands as they rested on his knees. His expression too looked shaken, his eyes still a little wide with shock and wariness.

“Wow, they hit me really hard, dude,” Newt winced, masking his seriousness with a light chuckle that shook his bruised frame. He didn’t sound resentful, however. It was a mere factual statement, something to say while they waited for his dismissal. Hermann wrinkled his nose in distaste.

“Were they apprehended?” he asked. He already knew the answer.

Newt shook his head. Hermann’s blood simmered with silent rage. He studied the discolouration in Newt’s cheek, the already painful looking purple that looked almost black around his eye. It looked like he’d been hit with enough force to send him sprawling, enough power to do serious damage if he had suffered for any longer. He noted every twist of colour and speck of blood to memory.

“You didn’t fight back, did you?” Hermann said softly. He wished he wasn’t smart, for once in his life, so he could ask these questions without already knowing the answers. He wanted to imagine that Newt squared his shoulders and punched back, wanted to know that he gave as much as he got and fought against those bastards because they didn’t know _anything_ about Newt. They had no idea how much he’d been through, even without their judgement and their abuse.

Instead, Newt didn’t respond and Hermann dipped his gaze, feeling a bruising ache in his own bones at the knowledge that Newt had let them hurt him. He’d taken it without raising his hands in defence, despite the fight he’d shown day-in, day-out in his mind.  

“You don’t deserve this, Newton,” Hermann said. A reminder, he hoped, and not something new.  

Newt stayed silent. Hermann kept his hand on his arm and tried to will away his pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I’m gonna hold my hands up and admit that this chapter was meant to be longer but I didn’t manage to get it all done. I’ve changed some of my plans for the fic; I’m estimating it’ll now run to around 30 chapters. Sorry if this one seems like a filler. I'm not entirely happy with how it turned out but it was something I'd planned for a while and was attached to other things, however I couldn’t get my head in a space to rework the chapter when I already knew it was gonna be late. My new job has been a bit tricky to get used to with 2 major writing projects alongside it. 
> 
> Lemme know what you think and thank you so, so much for your comments, especially recently as they’ve been amazing!! Thanks for reading and have a great week everyone! 
> 
> (also, fanfic headcanon, Dr Linda purposefully distracts Matt to give our boys time to talk <3)


	24. Premonition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news on my end ya’ll, I am no longer homeless!!! (I was kinda legally classed as homeless for about two weeks, go figure?) Which is why I'm posting tonight instead of tomorrow as I'm moving into the new place tomorrow.  
> Warnings for slight horror elements in this chapter.

“Scheisse, au!”

“ _Stop squirming, I’m trying to bandage this.”_ Hermann responded automatically in German, reacting instinctively to Newt’s shift. It happened occasionally, when Newt got too tired or frustrated for English, or sometimes when it was simply something inexpressible for one language. Right now, Hermann was pretty sure it was because German had many more expressive expletives, which Newt was muttering vehemently under his breath as Hermann changed the bandage on his ribs.

Newt had been discharged only half an hour after Hermann had arrived and he’d walked back home with a limp that was symmetrical to Hermann’s.

“You can lean on me, if you want,” Hermann had offered but Newt only wrinkled his nose and shrugged.

“I can walk, dude, I’m okay, seriously.” Hermann had raised an eyebrow at that but silently allowed him to proceed. It was with some satisfaction, won out by concern, that Newt appeared to be exhausted by the time he reached the apartment, listing heavily to one side as Hermann opened the door.

Matt reached out from behind them and placed a steadying hand on Newt’s shoulder, noting the way Newt’s eyes were slipping closed tiredly.

“Er, I’ll give you these, shall I?” Matt said, handing the bundle of medical supplies to Hermann, who tucked them under his arm.

“Yes, thank you.” He gave the guard a tight smile and guided Newt into the living room with a hand on his shoulder. “Be sure to put some ice on that,” Hermann said before he closed the door, gesturing to Matt’s bruised eye, “And, I suppose I should say thank you. For looking after him.” _I should have been there to do that,_ Hermann thought involuntarily but he scoffed internally; _And do what? Get beaten up as well?_

Matt looked stunned at the gratitude, beaming. “No problem doc, it’s – they were total jerks, we all know Newt didn’t do it. The Jaeger thing, I mean,” Matt clarified. Hermann felt a little twist in his stomach, guilt mixing with bubbling fear.

“Yes. Yes, quite,” Hermann agreed, “Good evening.” He nodded, perhaps a little too formally, and then closed the door, sighing. He felt heavy and tired, but seemingly not as much as Newton, who was slumped against the wall by the door, breathing shallowly through his nose.

“Newton? Come on, let’s get you to bed, you need to rest.”

Which led them to here, Newton’s shirt tugged off lazily and strewn on the floor, baring his tattoos and a myriad of bruises to the air. Hermann masked his shock at the colour that marred the artwork on Newt’s chest, bruises crowding the scrapes where Newt had fallen hard to the ground, and boots had hit his ribs and stomach with force. Newt didn’t look down at himself as he sat on his bed, now lined up next to Hermann’s with the bedside table between them. His eyes actively avoided the Kaiju swirling up his chest.

Hermann drew no attention to them, clearing his throat as he set to work. Newt’s ribs needed bandaging for the night, and, while there was nothing he could do for the bruising, he could give Newt a few painkillers before bed. It was only early evening, but Newt looked exhausted, almost asleep in his seated position, and Hermann supposed that an early night wasn’t the worst thing they could have.

Newt complained as Hermann bandaged his ribs tightly, but the words were a little slurred, coming out half in German and half in English. Or at least, mostly English; much of it was garbled and went round in circles. He was sure he heard Newt apologise more than once, but for what he couldn’t make out.

“Do stop muttering Newton,” Hermann chided, but there was no real bite to it. As he worked, he cast an eye over the tattoos on Newt’s body. They were as vivid now as they had ever been, the initial, violent shock of them morphing into a familiar fondness. He’d missed seeing Newt’s tattoos almost as much as he’d missed his voice in the last few years. There was something so inherently Newt about them, an outward show of his voluminous personality, a somewhat safe sight that never changed. Newton may have changed, but his tattoos were the same as they had been in the war, the same as they had been when they had started working together.

It was selfish and he knew it, but the rare opportunity to see them was warming, even with the bruising that mottled them.

He knew Newt didn’t feel the same way.

He handed Newt a t-shirt for bed, a rock metal band that Hermann had never even heard of, and a pair of ratty old gym trousers that he was sure had never once been worn at a gym. Newt’s mouth twisted in displeasure at the short sleeves but didn’t say anything, instead waiting until Hermann turned his back and dressed in silence. When Hermann turned around again, Newt was already in bed, his eyes drooping, his glasses still on his nose.

“So dumb dude,” Newt mumbled, “S’like, s’like six pm or some-something. S’not even late.”

“Well, one can’t blame you for being tired,” Hermann said, sitting at the edge of his bed, “Your body needs to rest.”

“Who’s’a biologist here?” Newt countered sluggishly and Hermann rolled his eyes. He rummaged in the pile of bandages and medications for the painkillers and read the label with a furrowed brow.

“Dude, they’re like – like, barely…whatever.” Newt trailed off, his taunt evidently too tiring to finish. Hermann resisted the urge to childishly throw the pill bottle at him, finishing his survey of the usage.

“Take two, and then, if you wake up again tonight, you can take two more in six hours,” Hermann said, “But wake me before you use them and _only_ after six hours. They’re quite strong.” Newt grumbled under his breath. Hermann knew Newt wouldn’t wake him to take the pills, so he planned on keeping them with him just in case. Not that he imagined he would take more on purpose, but the chance that he woke disorientated and confused in the night was enough to make Hermann cautious. There were too many uncontrolled variables for him to be entirely comfortable.

He handed Newt two pills and was about to get some water when Newt swallowed them both down dry, grimacing. It was a new habit of his, something that Hermann still wasn’t quite sure about the origins of, but he hoped against hope that it was a trait of Hermann’s he’d picked up; and not the result of anything Precursor-enforced.

Newt dropped back onto the pillow, his breathing already slow and steadying. There was a slight crackle to the in-breaths that Hermann knew was the pain in Newt’s ribs and he squeezed a hand around his good knee hard enough to hurt. It was enough that Newt was in pain, once again, but for him to be so because of Hermann made the hole in his chest open out like a claw, scraping against his own ribcage.

“I’m so sorry, Newt,” Hermann said softly. Newt didn’t respond past a sleepy mumble, his hair already mussing against the pillow as he snuggled deeper into the covers like a child. It was endearing and ridiculously painful at the same time. Newt looked so young underneath the bravado and the noise, beneath 6 PhDs and MIT and fighting for Stacker Pentecost’s attention. He never aged in Hermann’s eyes, his ridiculous hair and his stupid tattoos surviving the ten years the Precursors had him.

Hermann reached forward and gently removed Newt’s glasses, folding them before propping them on the bedside table, within reach. He took the pills with him, slipping them beneath his own pillow before he went to the bathroom to change. It was unlikely that Newton would wake while he was changing, but it still felt only proper to do so in a separate room. They hadn’t really considered the logistics of sharing a room beyond the safety it would provide, and while Hermann didn’t mind Newt changing while his back was turned, it seemed untoward to strip bare while Newt was sleeping less than two feet away.

He settled back into bed in his tartan pyjamas, fully aware that Newton would tease him endlessly for them the next morning. _Grandpa pyjamas,_ Newt would say. Hermann chewed his lip to prevent a smile, casting a glance to Newt’s bed. He was drooling, which Hermann didn’t have the energy to feel disgusted about since he’d done it countless times on the lab couch, but he seemed, momentarily at least, at peace. Something told Hermann it wouldn’t remain that way, the beating and the bruises no doubt already sinking into his nightmares. Guiltily, Hermann turned off the light, cutting off his view of the other side of the room.

He rolled over, turning his body to face Newt’s across the darkness. He pondered the mirror of their beds, Newt’s nightmares a result of Hermann’s own doing – and his own filled with visions of Newt; broken and alone, bruises clotting the colours on his skin, asking him _why_. 

 

* * *

 

Newt gasped awake, his bruised ribs protesting as he scrambled upright. He wheezed, the air coming thinly through his abused throat. Every bone in his body ached and he muffled the whine building in his chest.

He glanced across the room at Hermann’s bed, slowing his panicked breaths to a slow, even lilt.

He frowned. Something was off. Something in the darkness that shrouded Hermann’s side of the room.

There was light coating Hermann’s bed, so scarce that it was almost silver, and it seemed to drift from nowhere, casting Hermann’s face in a steely grey and white. His angular bones looked almost chiselled in cold, metallic stone, the cut of his cheekbones and the hollows of his eyes carved out in deep, almost black grey. It was haunting; terrifying in one glance but hypnotic in the next.

Newt glanced around to try and find the source of the light, but found none. Hermann’s hand, the one curled into the pillow, was skeletal in its silver and white skin. He was a still from an old movie, a photograph that had been kept in an attic and dusted over, frail but solid all at once.

“Hermann?” He moved his hand to push himself out of bed but the movement caught his eye and he gaped. His arm writhed with colour, the swirl of his tattoos so vivid that they dripped ink, vibrant and oozing in a way that made the Kaiju’s open scream look like a mess of wet paint.

Newt cried out, the base of his spine hitting the wall as he rocketed back in shock. He clawed at his arm, the skin seeming to melt and pull away like hot wax under the ink. The impact felt like a punch to his back and he thought, just for a moment, that he could see himself from _outside_ himself. As if he was stood, door opened to the room, observing the two beds. One in knife-like grey and the other in dripping colour. A chasm emerged between them; a bottomless cavern of ebony rock and Kaiju blue. The bed frames teetered on the edge of a drop into the Anteverse.

Newt pushed back against the wall as he came to himself, unable to control the screams that tore his throat. There was a whole world between himself and Hermann; the Breach splintering open, the skin of the Earth splitting like a loom stretched too tight.

_Newton._

Newt sobbed, the sound akin to the cry of a frightened child, shaking his head. He knew their voice. He knew what they sounded like in his head, knew the inhuman screech and deep, deliberate tone that _knew_ he couldn’t fight them. Knew he was theirs, forever.

_You think you’re free? You think any of you will be free?_

God, they still sounded like him, still sounded like words he remembered saying without ever meaning to. And he was sure now, he wasn’t just hearing them from inside his head. They were here. They were coming. They were crawling the walls of the chasm like ants, like the kind of ants that spawned in the stomachs of animals and came crawling out, rupturing skin and tearing flesh –

_Your world is going to burn. It’s only a matter of time. We’re coming for you, we’re coming for all of you._

The voices were close, so close, God _please no_ , Newt’s heart was hammering in his chest, way past panic attack into something so primal he wasn’t sure how he’d ever been able to breathe, how he’d ever been able to live with this much terror in him.

There was a thunderous sound that tore another scream from him and had him scrambling as his bed tilted sickeningly, the two legs closest to the abyss dropping as the ground gave way. Newt gripped the mattress, his feet pushing helplessly to keep his body from dropping forwards. His cries reached hysterical as he was met with the object of his nightmares.

The Anteverse spanned out inside the trench of clawed-up earth, electric blue writhing with Kaiju. The drop had no end, yawning ravenously beneath Newton’s trembling body, nothing between him and the torturous realm of oblivion.

He tried to scramble back towards the wall on the listed bedframe but something cold and frail seized his ankle, pulling down sharply. He screamed. Sobs interjected his desperate begging as he tried to shake the thing off. It pulled again and he felt something tear in his throat as he shrieked louder, hot blood simmering in his mouth as he flipped to face the creature.

The Precursor’s face followed him with shining eyes, soulless and hungry like black buttons sewn into its head. Its spindly limbs were raked into the earth, churning the scorched ground as it crawled, bug-like onto the bed, its hands burrowing into Newt’s legs with sharp fingers.

_You don’t know terror. Not yet._

Kaiju screamed below him. Hermann’s eyes, so far away across the reach of the cavern, were open and black and lifeless. The Precursor took hold of Newt’s thoughts; and _twisted._

 

* * *

  

The scream that woke Hermann, that perhaps woke the whole Dome, was like nothing he’d heard on Earth. He wrenched on the lamp, the light hurting his eyes as he staggered out of bed. Newt’s shrieks were beyond the sounds of a frightened man, they were the sound of an animal caught in a trap with no hope of earthly mercy. He was tangled in his bedsheets, so much so that his right arm was bent at a painful angle, but it didn’t prevent him from kicking and howling with everything he had. Hermann staggered to his bedside, hands ghosting around him without surety. This was nothing like the nightmares Newt had had before. This was nothing short of the most horrific, most heart-breaking thing Hermann had ever witnessed.

There was an insistent knocking at the door, barely audible above Newt’s screeches and the helplessness rose to Hermann’s throat, momentarily paralysing and impossible

“It’s a nightmare, it’s a nightmare!” he shouted eventually, too overwhelmed to even consider opening to door to a frantic Matthew. “Please, let me-”

He was cut off when Newt’s left arm came free from the sheets and almost clipped Hermann’s ear at speed, only catching him a little when Hermann pulled back. He dodged the flailing limb but didn’t capture it in his grip, worried it would only inspire further panic. Newt’s screams melted to heart-wrenching sobs and Hermann seized the moment.  

“Let me deal with it, it’s alright Matthew!” he yelled, feeling no real confidence in the statement. He heard a muffled response but he ignored it, whatever it was, in favour of Newt, who was currently gasping into his sobs like he’d been deprived of air.

Hermann pulled the sheet from his right arm, freeing it, and put a gentle hand to Newt’s back.

“Newton, Newton listen to me, it’s Hermann. Please wake up, wake up, it’s just a dream.” Tears were dripping down Newt’s face, soaking his shirt and Hermann was worried that Newt would choke on his own breathing, as irregular and harsh as it was. Newt whimpered like an animal before kicking out, another scream ripping his throat. With a wash of fear, Hermann spotted specks of blood on Newt’s lips. He hadn’t screamed like this since the infirmary, but even then it hadn’t sounded so hopeless, so agonised.

“Newton, I beg of you, please wake up,” Hermann pleaded, well aware of how helpless he sounded but not caring one jot, “It’s only a dream Newt, you’re safe, I promise you that you’re safe.” He kept his voice soft and his placating hands gentle, but Newt wasn’t waking, another round of screaming piercing Hermann’s ears. He could see the bandages bunching up beneath Newt’s shirt and he winced, concerned for the strain on Newt’s already bruised body. If he woke Newt and he was deemed to be whatever was tormenting Newt in his sleep, he was sure he’d end up in a state no better than Newt’s. But if he left him to his dream, Hermann would never live with himself again.

He grabbed Newt’s shoulders and shook them hard. He was unsurprised to feel tears on his own cheeks, the childish sobs and shrieks burning into Hermann’s memory mercilessly.

“Newt! Newt, wake up!” Hermann shouted and then, against his better judgement, he stilled Newt’s shaking head in his hands and placed his temple to Newt’s, aligning their cheeks so he could speak directly into Newt’s ear.

“Newt, you _must_ wake up. I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re safe now, you’re safe,” Hermann urged gently, his words only just above a low hum of sound.

Newt’s shoulders jerked with anguished, tear-filled whines but his screaming ebbed away. Hermann held him close, whispering soothing nonsense into his ear, placing one hand loosely onto Newt’s tattooed forearm, his thumb caressing the skin gently.

Eventually, Newt gasped like he was surfacing from water and he jerked back from Hermann’s grasp, eyes wide and shocked.

“It’s okay, it’s alright. It was a dream,” Hermann said slowly, raising his hands in a placating gesture. Newt shook his head frantically and opened his mouth as if to say something. Instead, his face blanched and he struggled to the end of the bed, only just making it to the waste paper bin Hermann had strategically placed there before vomiting hard. His spine arched as Hermann scooted down the bed, rubbing his back gently. It took a few long minutes before Newt was done, his stomach rejecting even the small amount of food he’d eaten that day and continuing to push his body to the limit as it forced bile to his throat. The smell was acrid and sour, filling the room with a nauseous air. Newt was shaking with the effort by the time he fell back, his face a mess with fresh tears and his tongue clicking dryly with the effort to speak.

“No,” he managed, shock in his eyes like he’d looked in the infirmary, “No, no.” Hermann moved his hand to Newt’s shoulder, still rubbing at the sweat-soaked shirt.

“It’s alright Newt, take your time.”

“It’s – Oh Jesus. Fuck, Hermann, _please_ , oh God.” Newt sounded on the very brink of a panic attack and Hermann had never felt more helpless.

“Deep breaths, take deep breaths,” Hermann urged. Newt was still shaking his head desperately.

“They’re – they’re coming. Oh Jesus _Christ_ , Hermann. I can’t – I can’t do it again, please, I can’t, _fuck,_ I can’t breathe-”

“Yes, you can Newton, just nice and slow alright? Breathe nice and slow for me. Who are coming? What are you talking about?”

Newt’s wide eyes met Hermann’s, creased at the corners with the pain of hyperventilating. He looked so afraid, so instinctively petrified, that it sent fear rocketing through Hermann’s system. It was basic, animalistic. The mute communiqué of prey at the first scent of a predator. Horror spoken with a look that, if one wasn’t careful, something will die before the sun rises.

“The Precursors,” Newt gasped, “They’re coming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I keep hurting them but listen, Newt is stronger than anyone knows and he’s going to make you even prouder in the next chapter. And Hermann, for that matter. These boys are as brave as any Jaeger pilot and braver, and they’ve got plenty of fight left in them, just wait and see!  
> Also, a disclaimer: Waking someone from a nightmare is actually dangerous, it's best not to try outside of a work of fiction!
> 
> Thanks as always for reading and supporting me, you guys are the best! All my love for the coming week, see you guys next Sunday! :)


	25. Reclamation

“It was a night terror Newton, just a dream.”

The lamp cast a soft orange glow around the room. Matt’s voice could be heard as a low rumble on his radio through the closed door. He’d already called the infirmary and Dr Linda by the time Hermann had stuck his head out into the living room and told him to stop calling people, Newton was fine. Just fine.

He’d returned to sit beside Newt. Newt, who was not fine.

“I know what’s a dream and what’s real Hermann,” Newt said firmly, though the rest of him trembled like dry leaves in a breeze, “I know what they sound like and – and what they do to my head and this was them, I know it. It was them and they’re coming back. It’s like it’s personal, it’s not just colonising instinct anymore man, we pissed them off and they’re coming to finish the job” He was staring at a point past Hermann’s bed at the blank wall, like it had opened up to somewhere fresh and terrifying that Hermann couldn’t see. For all he knew, it had; at least for Newton.

Hermann tried to keep his expression neutral, discouraging the impulse to argue, to say it was impossible. He’d done that once before and been dreadfully, painfully wrong. He wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.

“You said you know what they do to your…to you. Do you think it’s at all possible that they-” Newt cut him off with a definite shake of his head.

“I’m all me, Hermann, I promise, they’re not in here. And I know it sounds totally crazy and I’ve not had the best track run, but they _are_ coming, dude. I’m not making this up.”

“I didn’t say that you were,” Hermann said. The truth was, Newt had a better track record in terms of being right when it came to the Precursors than Hermann had. But when it came to being fortunate, Newt fared much worse; and the Precursors returning was par for the course, considering.

Hermann also couldn’t claim that the variables didn’t equate to this outcome. Science was not fortune-telling, a predictive model was not a promise. But promises lied, and mathematical certainty was all Hermann had to believe in beside the man sat next to him. The Precursors had made it clear while Newt was in confinement that they weren’t giving up; it was only a matter of time before they rallied their forces and returned. Hermann had hoped they’d have more time but, of course, they never had enough time. Nate and Jake had been holed up in LOCCENT since the disastrous first interview with Newt, prying for another conversation with him, but Hermann had denied them with bared teeth and a point blank refusal to tarnish Newt’s recovery further. But now it would only be a matter of time before Newt was called back in for questioning.

There was defensive, selfish urge in him that balked at the notion. Newt had given enough already and Hermann had lost it all with him. If the world could stand by and watch Hermann lose him again, it didn’t deserve to be saved. There was only so much compassion between the Precursors and the vast fields of human apathy.

“I believe you,” he said. Newt didn’t say anything. A thank you was superfluous; Newt had six PhDs, he was clever enough to know the conclusion Hermann would reach, if not all the reasons.

“Then what are we gonna do?” Newt’s voice was hollow and hopeless, his hands knitted together nervously.

Hermann wished he had an answer, but instead he sighed and rubbed his hand tiredly over his face. He cast an eye over Newt’s bruised face.

“Are you in pain?” he asked. Newt shrugged, even that movement causing him to wince. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees and scrubbing his fingers through his unruly hair. His glasses scooted down his nose at the motion and he breathed out like he’d been holding it, some of the tension finally easing out of his shoulders.

Hermann rested a hand on Newt’s back, gentling over it in slow arcs until he felt Newt’s breathing slow to a deep lull and rise.

“Thanks,” Newt said, “For waking me up. And, this, too.” He didn’t sit up all the way, but he lifted enough to nod at Hermann’s arm. Hermann was vaguely surprised. Oftentimes he was unsure if anything he did helped. Newt’s condition fluctuated so much that he always seemed to be one step behind, offering paltry comfort where he could and feeling helpless when Newt’s mental state only swelled and changed into another unknown beast.

The simple acknowledgement was shameful in how quickly it spread a comfortable warmth through Hermann’s chest, a surge of such gratitude and affection for his lab partner that he felt heat rise in his cheeks and he dipped his head in a nod, hiding the colour. Newt didn’t notice, righting himself and sighing.

“I just, they _are_ coming back, dude. And I’m so shit scared. I can’t face living like that again, Hermann, I just can’t. I – I’d rather die. I’d rather die than go back to that.”

“No. Newton, you are _not_ going to have to face that again,” Hermann said firmly. In the past, he was sure they’d have squabbled about it, their voices crawling atop each other’s, but this wasn’t about science. It wasn’t about an uncertain outcome. It wasn’t about ethics or politics or a thousand other things that interested him simply because he’d never found anyone else quite so willing to match his passion. This was about Newt. There was no possibility, there was no probable outcome in which Hermann could lose him again. He had worked this equation through in his head again and again, every night since Newt’s return and maybe longer, but it always boiled down to the same singular distillation: There was no Hermann without Newt. And there never would be again.

“We’ll fight them together, as promised, Newt. They are not stronger than _us_ ,” Hermann asserted.

Newt opened his mouth, an argument half formed, but he snapped it closed a second later. A frown crossed his features, like the retort he’d squashed was brewing up under his skin. His characteristic energy seemed to take control of his shaking, transforming the movement into the tapping of his foot and the staccato bounce of his fingers against his knee.

Hermann let him sit, warily watching the jerky movements and the way Newt’s face darkened.

Newt’s silence broke eventually, his voice crashing back into being like the waves hitting the shore. It was high and irate but unmistakable with an emotion Hermann hadn’t expected: rage.

“I’m just… I’m tired, y’know? They’re the ones with the power and I’m just – just spending every single day wondering when my brain is gonna turn to soup” Newt snapped, startlingly firm. His anger spilled out into his limbs, his arms gesturing wildly as he spoke. “I can’t do this anymore Hermann! I can’t – you were right. You were right, I can’t just _sit here_ and jump at every shadow and worry about everything all the time. They can suck it, y’know? Like – like, fuck the Precursors, and the Anteverse and fuck Alice. And I… I’m just so… so done with hiding and regretting all this time that I can’t get back and all the shitty, _shitty_ things I did. I’m _angry,_ alright? I can’t let them do this to me for another God knows how many years!”

The anger dissipated as fast as it came, leaving him wide eyed and shocky but when he glanced back at Hermann, some of the colour was back in his cheeks. Hermann blinked, taking in the tirade, about to speak when Newt huffed a short, humourless laugh.

“I know you’re gonna go all therapist on me and say I should calm down and wait-”

“I wasn’t going to say that at all,” Hermann interrupted calmly. The fury in Newt’s voice, reflexive or not, was something he hadn’t seen in a long, long time. For all he knew, it could be gone by tomorrow like a whisper of smoke, but right now it was strong and clear and vital. “I was actually going to say that it’s an excellent idea.”

“I’m sorry, what? What is?”

“I’m certainly not about to tell you that I disagree with any of that. And, if you feel that way, then there’s a blasted Kaiju brain in the lab that might be a good way for us to start on that.” Newt blinked, dumbfounded. Hermann simply looked back at him primly.

“You – really?”

“Yes, really. As soon as possible, in fact. I told you that we’d fight this thing and while I do believe that we must inform the Rangers of the progressing timeline, I also think we have a duty to destroy a viable Precursor link before the morning is out.” He didn’t mention the sheer excitement he felt at the thought of finally ridding them of that horrible piece of Kaiju, but he could imagine Newt knew already.  

Newt considered for a second. He looked at Hermann, the same sparkle reflected in his eye. A quick glance at the door.

“So like… trip to the lab?”

“It’s like you read my mind.”

 

* * *

 

Matthew was pacing the corridor when they emerged, still dressed in their pyjamas, a manic grin on Newt’s face. He looked at them uneasily.

“Newt, you okay?” he asked, genuine concern on his face. It was somewhat warming and Newt thanked his past self for the moment of courage he’d had to ask the guard his name and if, maybe, he had a stick of gum Newt could chew in the therapist’s office. Matt had turned out to be a surprisingly cool guy. He’d been a Marine before the sea became Kaiju territory, he had a grandma in Venezuela who apparently gave him grief for not knowing Spanish, and a love for vintage sports cars. Newt knew nothing about cars, but it was a cool thing to like, he supposed.

“Yeah, just scrambling some eggs, you know?” he said, pointing to his head. Matt looked a little shocked at that, evidently not catching the phrasing but he gave him an uneven smile all the same. Newt felt a little awkward at the attention, the now-familiar guilt of it creeping up his throat. He used to love being the centre of the room and now it only reminded him of judgement and guilt.

“Shouldn’t you be off shift now?” Newt asked quickly. Matt checked his watch.

“Yeah, I guess so but my CO said I gotta stay on. They’re having a look at the rotation since… well you know,” he gestured to the bruise on his face and then at Newt, “I guess they know I’m not one of the bad ones or anything. I got your back and stuff, so I don’t mind pulling extra while they work it out.”

Newt and Hermann shared a surprised look at that, Newt flashing amazement on Matt’s generous lack of judgement and make-Newt-Geiszler-pay-violence, and Hermann trying to quickly smother his own guilty expression. Newt wasn’t blind to the way Hermann had been scowling at the guards prior to yesterday.

“Wow, um, thanks man,” Newt said.

“It’s cool. Actually, I used to read your papers before I came to the PPDC. Yours too,” he nodded to Hermann, “But I wasn’t smart enough to join the research division after the budget cuts so I joined the Marines. I don’t know what happened to you doctor Geiszler but your papers were really… honest, I guess? There wasn’t a lot of honesty in official speculation after the Breach opened so I appreciated that. And it’s not my place to judge what happened to you when there’s monsters coming out of the ocean and giant robots patrolling outside. Crazier things happen, you know?”

Newt tried to keep his jaw from dropping too noticeably, but he evidently failed as Hermann stepped in for him, nudging him with an elbow.

“I think you’re more intelligent than you believe,” Hermann said, “We’d have been happy to have common sense and decency like yours on our research team.” It was uncharacteristically gentle, and Newt made a mental memo to congratulate Hermann on his sensitivity at a more convenient time, but for now he settled for gaping and allowing himself to be tugged bodily down the hall by Hermann.

“Wait, hang on,” Matt said, hurrying after them, “Where are you going?”

“ _We_ are going to do something we should have done a long time ago,” Hermann said.

 

* * *

 

“Guys, I don’t think we should be doing this,” Matt said from the door of the lab, looking out anxiously. Hermann glanced back at him, glad to see he was still in position to watch the corridor.

“Newt has waited quite long enough for this,” Hermann said, “And we’ve had this thing in our lab for far too long already. It’s in our department and is therefore ours to do with as we please. And, as such, it needs destroying. Immediately.” He glanced over at Newt, who was hovering by the doorway nervously, chewing his lip.

“Ready?” Hermann asked, his voice barely over a whisper. Newt nodded sharply. He didn’t look ready; he looked pale and ready to vomit at any moment. They approached the centre of the lab slowly, yellow light sliding over them like the slow creep of a grotesque hand over skin, prickling their necks with gooseflesh.

“Maybe Matt’s right,” Newt said, stuttering over the words, “Maybe we shouldn’t do this.” His eyes were locked on the tank, on the mass of flesh and muscle and hated tendrils that Hermann couldn’t wait to see wither and die. Newt’s eyes reflected the golden liquid, creating flecks of oily jaundice in his bright eyes that infuriated Hermann towards the specimen all the more.

“This thing destroyed your life and almost did much, much worse, Newton,” Hermann reminded him, but as they came to a stop in front of the tank, the illumination only highlighted the reticence in Newt’s expression.

His eyes softened at the proximity. Hermann wished he could Drift with Newton all over again just to understand it. It was the same look Newt had given his first Kaiju specimen. It was the way he’d bloomed while explaining every tiny discovery, the pulse of adventure and the thrill, the small swell of love that Hermann would never understand but had felt inside Newton’s head like it was his own. A glimpse into a world had been such a promise of wonder. A world that had let Newt down so terribly.

He placed a hand on Newt’s arm, startling him out of his daze. Newt’s eyes pulled away to meet his, tears clouding them.

“I dunno what I’m doing, man,” Newt admitted, “I should hate her altogether but there’s a bit of me that… that feels like she’s a part of me, I guess. I still want to love what might have been, if things were different. What I wished had happened. Like I could get close to what they felt, how the Kaiju think. I… I wanted it all to be so different.”

Tears slipped down Newt’s cheeks and he returned his gaze to the tank, to the thing that had ruined him, and was ruined with him. Hermann didn’t need the Drift to feel it; this was the only other thing in this universe that knew how Newt felt. What each shared Drift had been like, what the Precursors felt like at the helm of his mind, what it was like to be a captive pawn in a game you couldn’t control.

“I never meant for this to happen,” Newt said softly and Hermann was sure he wasn’t talking to him, or even to himself. It was apologetic. Intimate. A valediction.

Hermann stepped back, turning his head so as to give Newt a moment of space. He drew back from the feelings he could feel warring in Newt’s head, the disgust and the love and the anger and the hatred and the guilt. It hurt his head to feel it.

He knew that he had no idea how much it was hurting Newt.

There was a slither of shame in his eagerness to destroy Alice, not pausing to think about how Newt was entangled in her timeline. How this was Newt’s moment, not his. He dipped his head, funeral like, until Newt stepped back and joined him. The sadness and love were gone in his eyes, hardened into something that Hermann couldn’t recognise in his best friend. Genuine hatred wasn’t in Newt’s repertoire, or so Hermann had thought, but Newt’s gaze was piercing past Alice and straight to the masterminds he knew were out there, coming ever closer to them.

“Let’s do this,” Newt said. Hermann nodded, handing Newt the button that would drain the ammonia from the tank. It was simple, effective and not nearly as savage as Hermann wished it was. He was a scientist, however. He’d found satisfaction in smaller victories than this. His mouth twisted into a smile. _I hope there’s some part of you that feels pain, Alice._ It was a vindictive, primal thought that took him by surprise, but he didn’t regret it one bit. Not when he could see Newt’s hands shaking enough beside him to almost drop the controls.

A beat, wherein Hermann worried Newt wouldn’t be able to do it.

And then the liquid began to drain, slow and slurping like the pull of blood into a syringe. Newt’s shoulders sagged and, without warning, Newt’s body rested suddenly against Hermann’s, the warm, gentle weight pressing along the side of his body. Hermann risked a glance at Newt, supporting him as his legs grew weak in relief and grief.

Newt’s face was resolutely on the tank as it neared half empty and Alice began to twitch, the muscles contracting and heaving as they reacted with the air. Hermann silently swelled in quiet pride, so close in its heat to rage, at the deep shudders wracking the tendrils. Like the human brain, Hermann knew it felt no real pain but the contractions gave the illusion of grimacing agony. Its tendrils thrashed in automatic response, searching out liquid until eventually the tank was drained and the brain fell with a heavy thud to the bottom.

Hermann startled when he felt Newt reach out and grab his hand. Newt’s fingers awkwardly joined his own around his cane, clinging tightly like he too would fall without it. His clammy skin covered Hermann’s with a desperate grip that sent sparks of warmth up Hermann’s arm and into his chest. He saw Newt follow Alice’s final movements, its squelching spasms on the floor of the tank. So pathetic for something with such a grip on Newt’s trembling frame.

Alice seized one last time and then fell still, the surface instantly beginning to discolour as it dried.

Newt’s long, slow breath was the only sound before he finally slumped heavily against Hermann and began to sob. Hermann held him as he cried loudly, rubbing circles into his back as Newt mourned and released and rejoiced all at once.

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” Hermann muttered, mumbling quietly into Newt’s ear until he slowed his tears, sniffling. He stumbled once in his attempt to stand fully, allowing Hermann to steady him before he made it to his feet again.

“I can’t believe she’s…” he trailed off, glancing back at the tank.

“You did the right thing, Newt,” Hermann said. Newt nodded and he looked, for once, as if he genuinely believed it. There was a strength to his eyes, despite the watery sheen to them, and a relieved quirk to the line of his mouth.

“Part of it sucks,” Newt said, “But I’m also glad she’s gone. I used to be able to feel her all the time and now… now I can’t. It’s like there’s a door in my head that’s been shut. It feels sort of smaller, I guess? Like there’s less rooms in my house. It’s more manageable, without her always there.” Hermann nodded, understanding but knowing he’d never truly feel the depth of it.

Newt straightened. “I want to go see Lambert. I’ve got to tell them about, well, everything.”

Hermann’s unease must have shown on his face because Newt reiterated the sentiment firmer, looking Hermann dead in the eye without flinching. He nodded. As much as he wanted to protect Newt, Newt wouldn’t forgive him for not letting him see the Ranger in person. Hermann could play messenger as much as he wanted, but Newt would eventually be required.

“They need to be told,” Hermann agreed, “When the Precursors return, we’ll be ready.”

Hermann turned his back on Alice, a thing of such power reduced to a putrid, reeking tumour, no longer worth the tank it sat in. When Newt spared it one last look, Hermann hoped it was the only concession Newt ever gave it again, the last time he ever felt threatened by its presence.

If Hermann were to accidentally spill flammable liquid on the remains in the next few days, he was pretty sure no-one would object.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent longer editing this chapter than any other chapter and I’m gonna be honest, I still don’t like it. I’ve (for the most part) felt alright about most other chapters, but this one was incredibly hard and it still doesn’t feel right but I can’t pinpoint why. There are several drafts of this kicking about my laptop!  
> If you have any criticism regarding style or characterisation, please let me know.


	26. A Plan

The scarcity of natural light in the Shatterdome had never bothered Hermann like it had for Newt. For Newt, the cavernous twists and turns of LED corridors had been a ticking clock, counting down the hours until he finally snapped, ranting about rabbits in warrens and rats in traps and stormed out into Hong Kong to sample new delicacies Hermann had never heard of, or to visit his tattoo parlour. Hermann’s experience had been less claustrophobic. The intimate halls and hidden corners of the Dome had wrapped around him like the hiding places of his childhood home, like the classrooms he’d spent time alone in after school hours. He’d never felt the oppressive dark as Newt had, happy to step out only as far as the loading docks if he needed to, to close his eyes and feel the wind run its fingers through his hair and kiss of salty air on his cheeks.

It had been a long time since he’d been the docks.

The room they met the Rangers in made him long for the open air in a way he hadn’t for years. It was gloomy, evidently used for off-the-books conversations, hidden from the ears in LOCCENT. The tension was overbearingly apparent.

Nate and Jake sat across from them, both sitting in concerned silence as Newt regaled his dream to them, the message within it, the destruction of the Kaiju brain. There were moments that Hermann opened his mouth to reign Newt in, to remind them that they didn’t really need to know the precise measurement of ammonia in a specimen tank, but he bit his tongue at the look Jake levelled at him. He looked so much like his father in that moment that it was startling.

“So, you’re saying that the Precursors are on their way as we speak?” Nate said once Newt had finished. Newt nodded fervently. 

“Yeah, yeah and – okay, maybe not like crossing the Breach right now but they’re getting ready for something big. Planning stages, you know? I don’t know how long it’ll take them to-”

“Something big? Like another mega-Kaiju?” Jake interrupted.

“No – well, I don’t know, maybe? But probably not. Bigger. I don’t know what it is-”

“Or _when_ it is,” Nate pointed out, “Or how they’ll manage it”

“He’s not been wrong about the Precursors’ plans before,” Hermann snapped, a spark of protective anger kicking the words out of him, “He’s not lying.”

“He was right about the Precursors’ plan before because he _was_ their plan,” Jake said. Nate sent him a warning look.

“Jake, don’t.”

“I’m just saying-”

Hermann was about to interject when Newt jumped in, moving his hand on Hermann’s forearm.

“Listen, I know this all sounds really crazy, coming from maybe the worst possible person it could come from,” Newt said, “But they’re not in my head anymore. I don’t know how to prove that, but I’ll do whatever tests you need me to take, scans, whatever, alright? But you knew they weren’t going to let you win for long, because I remember pretty well that I didn’t… they made it pretty clear that they weren’t going to let go that easy. They’re coming back and we need a plan.”

A taut silence followed his words, the Rangers scrutinising him. Hermann could feel Newt’s leg tapping up and down next to his own, his teeth worrying at his lip. It was heart-breaking to see him so desperate to be believed; a scientist with decades’ worth of experience, and more PhDs than Hermann thought sensible, losing all the credibility he’d worked and fought so hard to get. Hermann wanted to follow up, to announce his own support for Newt’s plight but over-stating the point was already impossible; the claim itself was severe enough.

“You have a plan?” Nate asked eventually. Jake looked at him but didn’t interject, which was a small victory. Newt nodded. Hermann raised an eyebrow at that. Newt had been adamant about telling the Rangers but he hadn’t mentioned a plan, though now that he considered it, it was natural that Newt would have thought about this a lot. Not only in his fear of the Precursors’ return after his freedom, but Hermann imagined the time Newt must have spent planning alongside the Precursors, thinking simultaneously about his own freedom, his own opportunity for revenge.

Maybe not revenge, Hermann corrected to himself. Revenge, vindication, these were Newt’s in small doses, and more Hermann’s realm in his appreciation of spiteful progress, but Newt had a capacity for martyrdom that devastated Hermann a little whenever he thought about it. For Newt, an attack on the Precursors was reparation for their shared crimes. A hamartia of kindness. He wished, sometimes, Newt was a little crueller, a little more selfish. But then he thought about hands on his neck and Newt’s gutted expression over his, the way Newt’s world collapsed at the thought of what he could do with enough coldness. He didn’t know which was the worse destruction.

“Listen, I won’t say that I’m not uncomfortable with going on your dreams as a source of information,” Nate said, “But you had them in your brain for long enough that it would be suicidal not to listen to you at this point.” Nate didn’t notice the way Newt flinched at that. “And we knew the Precursors were going to return at some point. If we have a plan, it’s better now than later.”

Jake was still silent beside him, the longest Hermann had seen him without a smile or a witty comment. He wondered if he was thinking about Mako. She seemed to fill the spaces between words sometimes, the memory of her so tangible that it seemed to bolster Jake’s strength like she had for his father.

“Jake?” Nate prompted, noting his silence also. Jake blinked and then, lazily, shrugged.

“Listen man, if you think you’ve got a way to get these bastards, I wanna get them too,” Jake said. He met Newt’s eyes and held them. For the first time since they’d met after Newt’s release, the power and surety in Jake’s gaze didn’t overwhelm the insecurity in Newt’s. He held Newt’s eye with a respect that steadied Newt’s resolve, his bouncing leg slowing under the table.

Hermann knew that whatever conclusion Jake had come to, it wasn’t about this one dream or the passion in Newt’s words. Time didn’t heal everything, it didn’t heal pain like Hermann wished it did or grief like it was supposed to, but it grew perspective in its gardens.

Hermann caught Jake’s eye and nodded, almost imperceptibly. Jake gave him the slightest smile back, eyes warm and Hermann hoped he could see the gratitude he owed him. Newt needed everyone he could get on his side.

“So what exactly is this plan?” Nate asked. Newt shuffled in his chair, half anxiety, half puppy-dog excitement.

“Alright, so er… not to bring up bad memories for anyone,” Newt said, and Hermann saw the way he positioned himself in his chair, body language closed off to attacks, “But I opened the Breach using the Jaegers once, with some help, and I think I could do it again. Minus the Precursor help, obviously.”

“Not to nit-pick but that doesn’t sound like a particularly good plan for keeping the Kaiju in the Anteverse, that sounds like the opposite,” Nate mentioned.

“The Precursors are coming anyway,” Newt argued, “Nothing’s gonna stop them. Our best shot is to get in there and strike first.” To Newt’s evident surprise, Jake wagged a finger in agreement.

“He’s right. We have got to take the fight to them,” he said. Newt shot him a grateful look, excitement visibly bubbling in him again. The irony wasn’t lost on anyone that the words, spoken once to the Precursors inside Newt’s head, were now mirrored for Newt’s cause.

“Alright, so, we open the Breach. And then here’s the cool part.” Hermann rolled his eyes. All the time that had passed, after all that had happened, Newt still found it in him to describe an offensive on the Anteverse as ‘cool’. It was as irritating as it was amazing.

“So, scientifically, it’d take like 240 decibels of sound to make a human’s head pop. Or not pop, but like, enough to kill them right? Which is like, an insane amount of noise, it’s way too much sound, we’d never even be able to produce that. Not even with-”

“Newton, please tell me you’re headed towards a point here,” Hermann muttered under his breath. Newt blinked, redirecting his attention once more.

“Yeah, I was getting to that Hermann,” Newt said, “Anyway, the Precursors, right, they work on a _lower_ frequency. It’s not so much about volume but pitch, like dolphins, right? You know the sound dolphins make that we can pick up on radars and stuff? When the Precursors were… when they… Before I knew anything was wrong, for the first few years after the war, I figured out a whole bunch of stuff about the Precursors. I wanted to know about them like we did the Kaiju, right? Try and use what the Drift had shown me and figure out a little of their basic biology. Which, obviously, kind of became a bit obsessive after things started getting weird… Anyway, the kind of frequency the Precursors operate on could, theoretically, be artificially created.”

He settled back in his chair, looking triumphantly between the Rangers, who stared back at him blankly. For Hermann’s part, the significance of Newt’s words sank in slowly, like the start of pins and needles in his fingertips that travelled to his spine as realisation slowly dawned.

“Dear God,” Hermann whispered.

“Okay, I feel like I’m a step behind here. What do you mean by that?” Jake asked.

“He means,” Hermann responded, his voice flat with shock, “That he has enough information to perhaps bring down the Precursors entirely. If we could replicate such a frequency-”

“Then we could turn that frequency to 11!” Newt exclaimed, “If people are exposed to 240db in an enclosed space, then splat, you’d never make it. Your bones would get shaken to pieces, your lungs would shut down, the works.”

“The same could be applied, in theory, to alien life-forms. Given that they are organic,” Hermann noted.

Nate sat up straighter, the implications dawning behind his eyes. “You think you could do that to the Precursors?”

Newt gave a curt nod. “They’re aliens, but every organic creature has a threshold,” he said.

“But you said you’d need an enclosed area,” Jake argued, “You said it’d work on humans in a closed space, so I take it that you’d need the same for the Precursors?”

Newt, his excitement verging into confidence, gave them a knowing look. It made Hermann want to smack him upside the head if he wasn’t so damn proud of his progress, that spark of scientific showmanship that Hermann had dreaded was lost forever.

“That’s where Hermann comes in,” Newt said. Hermann startled.

“I’m sorry?” he said. Newt grinned.

“Your rocket thrusters, the ones you, er, the ones you used in Tokyo? When I… when you… The thrusters you told me about? I mean, dude, those are still by far the coolest thing you’ve ever made.”

“They’re practical, newton,” Hermann groused.

“And _awesome._ ”

“They’re temperamental and dangerous.”

“Gentlemen!” Nate interrupted. Hermann flushed, shutting his mouth with a click of his jaw.

“Anyway,” Newt responded, dragging out the word obnoxiously, “Hermann’s _awesome_ rocket thrusters are gonna help us. If we could create some unmanned, remotely controlled Jaegers, or even just basic delivery systems, and attach Hermann’s rocket thrusters to them, we could drop them into the Breach and use their speed to form a net around the Precursor’s location. And then, we just turn on the frequency emitters and make one big Precursor sound trap.” 

“Ridding us of them for good!” Hermann agreed. He thumped his cane against the floor, underlining his statement with a smile in Newt’s direction. Newt grinned back, energy and light in his eyes.

The Rangers considered them for a long moment, sharing looks that Hermann couldn’t decipher.

“If visual contact isn’t made, or the scanners don’t work, how can we be sure that the net is wide enough?” Jake asked. Hermann cringed. There were holes in the plan, of course there were. The plan that cancelled the apocalypse had been defined by holes, but it had worked nonetheless.

“I’m…working on that,” Newt said. 

Another long pause from the Rangers, the kind of pause that made Hermann nervous. Newt didn’t pick up on his apprehension, looking between the two men eagerly.

“It’s the best plan we’ve got,” Nate admitted finally, tone strong but wary, “We’ll need to talk to you, Hermann, about the remote Jaegers. We’ll have manned Jaegers at the Breach to prevent Kaiju escape.”

“I would like to speak with Ms Namani about the unmanned coding, I imagine she will have relevant insight,” Hermann said, “Perhaps Liwen Shao, also.” He didn’t miss the way Newt flinched violently, involuntarily, at the mention of his old boss. He felt a little guilty at how stricken Newt was by her name, like he’d been physically slapped.

“I’ll set up a meeting with them both,” Nate agreed.

They shook hands, Newt keeping his own hands clasped tightly behind his back as they did so, dodging the formalities in a way that would seem simply idiosyncratic to the Rangers, but caused Hermann to raise his eyebrow. Newt hated formality, sure, but he wasn’t allergic to it. He tried not to imagine the alternatives for Newt’s reluctance but his mind supplied them anyway, cruelly. Newt’s hands had blood on them, at least to Newt’s mind; blood that meant something to the Rangers. Hermann ushered Newt from the room quickly, thanking the men as they nodded politely at them both.

“Thanks Newt,” Nate said firmly as they left, “I know that wasn’t easy.” Newt simply nodded, smiling in a way that was tired and worn, like the adrenaline was wearing off, and scurried out ahead of Hermann.

 

* * *

 

 

“The Precursors are one thing, but the Kaiju are just as likely to be killed by that frequency as they are, and you failed to mention them.”

 Hermann couldn’t help the question he aimed at Newt’s back when they left. Newt tensed but didn’t respond for a moment, walking in front of Hermann with energetic bounds.

“I personally care very little for their fate, but I am not you,” Hermann pressed, “You were always the first to defend the Kaiju as pawns of the Precursors. Are you really going to kill them?”

“Yeah, didn’t you hear me in there?” Newt responded. He was marching ahead, quicker than Hermann could fall into step with. Newt hardly ever walked faster than Hermann could match.

“I heard what you told _them_ ,” Hermann said, “I want to know what you’ll tell _me_ , or if I’m going to be lied to as well.” Newt stopped short, Hermann almost careening into his back. Newt turned sharply.

“What do you want me to say, dude? Yeah, I didn’t mention the Kaiju, because I don’t know what I’m gonna do about them, alright? I… I know what they’re going through. I know they’re monsters or whatever, but the Precursors are using them too. If the Precursors aren’t there to control them anymore, then maybe-”

“You can’t be certain that the Kaiju wouldn’t attack Earth again,” Hermann said levelly. Newt chewed his lip. Hermann could see his mind working behind his bright eyes. If they were to leave the Kaiju alone, and they attacked again… Hermann didn’t think he could save Newt from himself if that happened. That kind of guilt would kill him

“I was in the Hive Mind, Hermann. I got fed what the Precursors thought but… but the Kaiju have their own thing going on too. They’re just animals. They’re not world destroyers, they’re being controlled,” Newt said and then added, thoughtfully, “I guess we have that in common, huh?”

“And what about the Hive Mind? How does that work for the Kaiju? There’s a chance that, if the Precursors are gone, the Kaiju might not survive.” Newt didn’t look surprised by the thought; it had evidently crossed his mind too. In the part of his imagination that recently dedicated itself to self-flagellation, Hermann imagined the crash of the sonic boom through the Anteverse and then, like stones sinking in the sea, a hundred Kaiju drifting downwards through the blue. Blue blood like blue rain; Kaiju dropping from an electric sky in all their natural, wrath-forged sublimity.

“I dunno dude,” Newt admitted, sounding tired, “But I think they’d want me to try this. To free them, I mean. I think I’d want someone to try, if someone had asked me.” There was no bite in the words, no intentional direction, but Hermann felt the gnaw of grief bubble inside him all the same. Newt didn’t wait for Hermann as he turned and walked away. Hermann kept his distance on the way back to the apartment, trying hard to block the questions buzzing in his skull.

Did the destroyers of their world, the creatures that had killed so much of what Hermann loved, deserve to live? Were they truly just pawns in the Precursors’ game? Like Newt? If he was to forgive Newt, he would be a hypocrite to deny the Kaiju the same, but the connection didn’t sit well with him. He wondered how much of it was a test on his own character, whether Newt would never believe his forgiveness if he couldn’t see the Kaiju’s innocence. The sight of Newt’s face as Alice died came back to him, the realisation that no-one would ever understand Newt quite so much as the chemical dance and physical reactions of that otherworldly, alien _thing_. The decision, moral or not, was simple. To hold onto the things he’d lost, or risk losing the little he had left to lose.

The scenario he tried hardest not to imagine was the one that wouldn’t leave until long into the night, until exhaustion finally claimed him. Newt, years younger, bright and full of wonder, begging Hermann to free him, whatever the cost. _Just try. I just want you to try._ He imagines rows of equations on his boards, his chalk scored down to a stub, his fingers bleeding to the bone as he continued to write. Each equation comes to the same conclusion. _It’s okay,_ Newt kept saying, _it’s okay. If it kills me, at least you tried._ He kills the Precursors a thousand ways in his mind. It kills Newt a thousand ways too.

Hermann woke from his nightmares that night and didn’t close his eyes again until morning broke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey my lovelies! Just to say that I am posting this now because I am not going to have much wi-fi access over the next few days so I’m worried I wouldn’t be able to post this if I waited until Sunday!:) Hope you all have a wonderful week!


	27. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still condone the heckling of any typos or mistakes in this fic (it's penance for editing my own stuff) but be gentle with me on this chapter. I typed the whole thing on my mobile phone cos I don't have a laptop atm. Editing it was pretty painstaking!

Newt had never met anyone who worked like he did, until he met Hermann.

There was an ebb and flow to scientific work that Newt connected with. The waves of oceans he'd grown to love, his own uncontrollable moods and the voice he weaponised in its cracks and flaws all shared the same vibrant half-life. Hypotheses died, renewed, resuscitated like music under his fingers. Samples respired and then decayed. The wait before data revealed itself was always transformed into the special, addictive moment of eureka. Until the Drift, Newt had never felt a high like it.

Until Hermann, he'd never imagined anyone would understand it. Neither the Drift, nor the work.

Working with Hermann, to Newt's wry amusement, was Newtonic in nature. Equal and opposite in every reaction, Hermann supplied a pull to Newt's argumentative push. For every time Newt's voice cracked in frustration, Hermann's rose to match it. But the moments of quiet aligned too; the pensive exchange of theories, the moments of understanding at the end of the war that no-one else would ever grasp.

The countdown clock had counted endlessly outside their lab and they too had ticked in opposition, passing like hands on the same hour with a spark like nothing Newt had ever felt; compatible and exciting and indescribable.

Newt glanced across the lab table, the same tingle of inspiration kindling in him as he watched Hermann calculating equations. He'd been so sure after the Precursors that he'd never work on scientific research again, maybe never get to see Hermann work again, and yet, here he was. He was smart enough to know the unspoken rules of the deal, that he was to assist _Doctor Gottlieb_ in assembling the sonic device for the Precursor offensive and then, presumably, never return to the lab, but it didn't stop the grin from spreading across his face. They'd been in the lab since morning, tinkering and bickering over frequency fluctuations in the Anteverse and it felt _so good_ to be working again _._  It was probably a little sad how much Newt clung to the momentary feeling of freedom, but he pushed the embarrassment down. He could pretend everything was normal, just for today. He was doing something useful, fighting back, reclaiming something for once. He was in the lab with Hermann and it felt more right than anything in the last ten years had.

It was surprising how much younger his body felt, how much lighter it seemed without the heavy weight of thought bearing down on him. The thoughts would creep back every now and again, cloying and oppressive, but the work helped to keep his mind focused. He hated to admit how right his therapist had been in the annoying catchphrases and platitudes she'd fed him in the past few sessions, but this was one of the rare occasions where one, maybe, was applicable. Thinking about the past would mess up his present and his future. In fact, he'd mess up everyone's future if he let his wandering mind distract him from the task at hand. Newt balked at the joke he'd made only last session, something about betting money on psychology being a fake science. He wondered how long he could keep his acquiescence a secret before he had to hand over a couple of bucks. His therapist, an Irish-Ukrainian lady even shorter than Newt named Emma, probably wouldn't accept the money anyway, but she'd definitely never let him live the admission down.

A light tap on Newt's hand made him jump, screwdriver slipping from his fingers. Mechanics wasn't his field but he'd managed to sell his skill set of Kaiju biopsy and six perfectly good PhDs well enough to the Rangers that he'd been trusted to help beyond supplying notes. Hermann's vouch for him had gone a fair way too, along with the fact that the PPDC science division wasn't exactly a well oiled machine. The latest top-secret tactics reached only the highest echelons which, basically, included just Hermann.

Newt looked up, Hermann's fingers still lightly touching his hand.

"You look a little... lost," Hermann said, searching for a word that still made Newt's nose curl, "I mean to say that you've been standing there without finishing your sentence for some time now". Newt felt his grin spread only wider and wondered if he looked as manically elated as he felt.

"Honestly?" He said, "I've never been better." Hermann raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

"I mean it! Like, yeah, a bit... much, you know, you and me doing badass science together but I'm actually really pumped, dude. Crazy pumped. This is awesome, really."

Hermann looked a little sceptical, worried even, but his expression eased when Newt picked up the tool again.

"I asked Amara to send you some notes on the Jaeger delivery system, if you'd like to look at them," Hermann said. Newt didn't look up, but took the olive branch for what it was. No doubt there would be a Shao Industries logo branding the documents, but so far Hermann hadn't brought up Newt's old boss and Newt appreciated it. He knew the topic would be broached soon, if Shao was to be aiding the project from any distance, but he was grateful for the tact on his behalf.

They worked in silence for a few minutes, the slump back into their old rhythm making it easy for Newt's mind to settle. The lab had been his safe place, both in and outside of his imagination, and it still felt that way now.

He was startled a moment later when he heard something dragging a few metres from him, surprised that he hadn't heard Hermann move until he'd begun dragging a set of metal shelves on casters toward their desk.

"Um, Hermann? What is that?"

Hermann glanced up at Newt before turning, his body shielding the contents of the small shelves. Newt tried to squash the nervousness that bubbled up inside him. Everything about their plan had been laid out, their objectives on the sonic device were clear, nothing was out of place or uncontrolled; what was Hermann doing? Newt's thoughts raced faster than he could keep up with and he bit his lip, watching Hermann's back as he fiddled with something at chest height. Newt felt ridiculous for the nauseous feeling of unease that came with the uncertainty, trying not to think of the hundreds of times he'd had to guess at Precursor motives, or piece together his actions from impossible clues. Hermann wasn't an unexpected person, he didn't do unplanned so what -

A low noise suddenly filled the lab, slowly becoming louder and more distinct.

Newt froze, his eyes almost instantly tingling with wetness, his mouth dropping open.

Hermann moved aside, revealing a beat up looking boom-box, immediately recognisable as Newt's from the many adorning stickers. The sounds of Led Zeppelin vibrated from it, lower than Newt would ever have played it, but clear and strong.

"I, er, procured it from your possessions in storage," Hermann explained, looking abashed at Newt's open expression, "I am personally not a fan of the thing, but I thought it would be familiar to us both if we worked in something a little less than silence."

He looked nervous, as if he expected Newt to crumble there and then, or object, or any number of reactions that Newt couldn't muster right now. Newt couldn't say himself which one was more accurate. The heat prickling his eyes travelled down his spine and into his heart, into where years of loneliness had carved out a rotting crevice.

The music stretched out its hold like bleary lights through snow storm windows, like a hand reaching for his without thinking how much those hands had already done. How much Newt had done, and how much Hermann had done for him. How much Newt didn't deserve this; but there was the warm, whole feeling of home anyway; playing music he didn't deserve to hear but had been gifted regardless, without expectation.

For the first time in years, Newt felt safe. He's never thought about it before the war, before the Precursors, and now he regretted ever taking a home for granted. Home, Newt realised, had been so poorly translated in every context he'd ever seen. Home was the eye that saw someone worthy in you, the hand that held tight when bitten, the electric guitar they can't stand but know you love.

Newt swallowed back the watery laugh that threatened to escape him, knowing how hysterical he'd probably sound.

"I can't believe they let you have that," he managed. Hermann's smile was relieved, and he puffed his chest out proudly.

"I do happen to have some pull at the PPDC, if you hadn't noticed, Doctor Geiszler," Hermann teased back, his mouth twisting into a wry smile. Newt chuckled, swiping a hand at the tear that spilled over unbidden.

"I really don't know what to say dude," he admitted, "I mean, thanks. I know you probably don't think it's more than music but-"

"I have some idea, I think," Hermann said, his voice softening. His expression accepted the gratitude in Newt's eyes, the huge bulk of unnamable things that Newt could never express and seemed to process it, boiling them down as simply as one of his equations. Hermann nodded, short and sharp, turning the music up ever so slightly before he walked stiffly back to the table and set back to work. Awkward, rigid, but easily more translatable to Newt than anyone else could ever be.

By the time he had to leave for therapy, Newt was singing along to rock ballads, Hermann's complaints of his lack of vocal improvement providing a familiar backdrop. Newt didn't even stop grinning to retort.

 

* * *

 

Hermann was cooking when Newt returned, not bothering to say goodbye to the unnamed guard on duty today. He'd followed too close behind all the way to and from therapy, sneering mildly at Newt's attempt to make conversation. Newt couldn't wait for Matt's shift to start already.

He dumped the sheets Emma had given him on the sofa, grimacing at the overly childish looking layout of the worksheets. They looked boring, and not unlike the kind of thing he'd filled out as a teenager in his counsellor's office, and the thought of filling out more made him want to rip them up.

Emma had refused the ten bucks he'd offered her, but laughed when he'd declared psychiatry as "maybe not a totally dud science". He didn't really mean any of the jibes, but she had a nice laugh and it made him feel a little less useless on his lowest days, so it made it worthwhile.

He walked into the kitchen, cracking a grin when he noticed that Hermann was way too overrun with renegade pasta sauce boiling to say more than a hurried "Newton, don't just stand and gawp" at him before hurrying to take the offending pan from the hob.

"How was the session?" Hermann asked once the crisis was averted. Newt faked a scowl. Hermann only ever asked that when he knew it was a good one, otherwise settling for Newt's stony silence and however many hours Newt would spend crying on the sofa later, or sat on Hermann's bed with his bare feet touching the other man's flannel-clad legs.

Newt leaned against the kitchen counter. The weariness in his bones was noticeably lessened and a smile tugged at his lips. He faintly remembered when most days had felt like this.

"It was good," he said, his lips curling easily around the words as he slipped into a lingering pause. He watched Hermann dish the pasta into bowls and enjoyed the momentary silence in his head, the only noise being the scrape and scratch of the ladle. "I told her that I had a good day today. Today was a good day."

When Hermann turned, pasta sauce daubed on his apron and his hair mussed with the steam, the crinkle in the corner of his smile alone was enough to make it a good day. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Newt still has a long way to go but recovery is about good days and bad days until the best outweighs the worst. 
> 
> Yes, the boys are domestic but let's face it; they already bicker like an old married couple and I don't even try to write them like this, they just care so damn much. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and leave a comment with any thoughts and criticism!


	28. A Flat Circle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from the fact that I am still a slut for True Detective season 1.   
> There's only 2 more chapters left so I'm putting feelers out for if anyone would be interested in a sequel, which would be romantically based Newmann, following this story? Lemme know if you'd be interested in that and, as usual, leave a comment and let me know what you think!

The words on the screen kept flickering and Newt kept breathing. In. Out. In – his concentration snagged on a sentence and he missed the out breath, throat squeezing in panic. In. Out.

He didn’t know if he’d been using the computer for too long, or maybe the screen was just old and broken. Maybe it kept dimming in and out of focus because he kept missing the damn out breath, kept slipping out of rhythm because dammit, it had all been going so well. Only yesterday he’d been happy, it had been like old times and he’d felt lighter than he had in so very long. His therapist had told him to be careful, that there were good days and bad days, but the good day had just felt so _good_.

It had been going so well.

He wanted to cry. Maybe that was why the screen was hard to read, because his eyes kept clouding over with tears and his throat burned with pressure. None of this was fair. It had all been going so damn well. It had been going well until the moment it wasn’t; until he’d woken in the early morning with the idea formed like it had crawled into his ear overnight and planted in his brain. It hadn’t stopped growing.

He peered over the screen at the darkened lab, at Hermann’s sleeping form. The other scientist had dropped unceremoniously onto the couch around four hours ago, sleepily insisting that Newt got some rest too. Newt was exhausted as well, the tug of sleep after too long working on a project. The sonic device was complete at least.

It had been going so well.

Maybe it was the tiredness. That was a plausible reason for the dip in his vision, the way that his balance tilted as he tried to stay focused on the screen. He knew that the article had stopped really making sense hours ago; about the time when he realised he’d read the introduction four times without really understanding it. Research had been so easy before, the words never writhed and danced under his scrutiny.

_And maybe you’re just kidding yourself,_ Newt thought bitterly. He knew what the ripening of a panic attack felt like. He knew that he was minutes from a real doozy if he kept going, but it was like looking at a train wreck; he couldn’t stop.

He glanced at Hermann again and, for a moment, his resolve faltered with his wavering vision. He could close the computer down, nap like any sane human being after hours of concentration, wake Hermann and pretend that he had never been sat alone in the lab for hours. The PPDC officials would probably have a fit about that, if they knew. The imagined scenarios of damage he could cause in a lab by himself was enough to have him locked away for good if anyone but Hermann found out about it. His hand hovered on the mouse, the pull to close the article strong and right in his gut. Everything about this felt wrong. Risky; and he hadn’t taken risks since the Precursors had made themselves at home.

His finger didn’t move on the mouse. The article stared back at him.

He was doing this for the PPDC. Without an accurate location for the Precursors in the Anteverse, the entire plan would collapse, with the fate of the world on the line. If they didn’t beat them this time, there wouldn’t be another chance. And if they lost… Newt imagined the things they’d promised in his head. They had been explicitly clear in their promises. Their cold grip squeezing around his brain. His eyes locked on a world burning. The light dying in Hermann’s eyes as his hand wrapped around his neck.

Panic snatched up his breath again and he gritted his teeth, counting mentally. Mapping his breathing only made it more noticeable when he missed the out breath and he choked on a sharp inhale, eyes watering in frantic need. He didn’t want to do this. It had been going so well, it wasn’t _fair._

It was never fair. His life had never been fair, he had never had a choice. Stacker Pentecost had never given him an option after his brain had been turned to mush by Kaiju brain shrapnel the first time, the Precursors had never given him a say in who controlled his body. He didn’t have a say in the fact that, somewhere, in a part of his brain that was tucked away and bleeding, still part monstrous and electric blue, was everything the Precursors knew. Somewhere in his brain, he knew where they were. If the PPDC, if _the world_ , needed that, then Newt was the only one who could give them it. All he needed to do was access it.

Before all this, he would have asked why it had to be him. Why couldn’t it be someone else? Someone braver, someone who looked like a hero and sounded like a martyr and didn’t care if they ever saw the ocean again. But there was no reason why. If the Precursors had taught him anything in all their cruelty, it was that there was no reason why. Choices led to consequences, sequences led to finalities and there was no comforting plan for why or who deserved what they got. Jaeger pilots died because they moved just a fraction of a second too slow. Civilians died because they had sheltered from the rain in the wrong neighbourhood. It was the science of which car wouldn’t start and which oxygen mask would work and which brain cell stayed standing. It never failed to disappoint.

The article still sneered at him. The research, clinically read, was benign. Drift therapy had been trialed years ago, the notion of using the technology to treat PTSD in pilots by accessing traumatic memories. The program was shut down after a string of test subjects had chased the rabbit too far and exited shaking and scarred, but the basic premise was never tossed. Memories, even ones hidden away and locked in parts of the brain that were entirely subconscious, could be accessed in the Drift. Pilots did it inadvertently all the time. The research had strayed later on, the files trailing off into dark oblivion as the military had made their interest known. Testing went underground, moved to places that had no Jaegers; just black sites with no satellite footage and the kind of people who wanted information from unwilling minds.

Newt shuddered at the thought, his thoughts flicking back to the cell he’d been detained in just a few corridors away. The tiny part of himself that been awake had shrank back when they wheeled in the Pons set, hyperventilating in the back of his own brain with images of what kind of interrogation such a small, innocuous machine could carry out. He’d never been more relieved to see Hermann in his life.

No conclusions had been drawn from any of it, except that it was risky. But then, no one had ever had Precursors in their mind; nor had they Drifted quite like he had with Hermann in that cell. If the Precursor’s location was in his head, logic pointed to an obvious solution. Just one Drift and he could have it. He could give them what they needed to beat the Precursors once and for all. The only thing in his way was a universe of awful possibilities and the grain of paralysing fear at what was still locked, ever present, in his brain.

He stared at the walls that now looked so cold and far away, and he felt small. He kept making the same decisions, not because he was brave or even, as Hermann would argue, because he was reckless and too damn curious for his own good. It was because they always seemed to be at the end of the line and there was no getting off the train before it crashed into the station. _This is what it’s like_ , he mused, _to live your life over and over again_. Performing the same actions again and again over time, unable to stop yourself, unable to make another choice. A decade ago, he had reasoned the same things: it was for PPDC. Just one Drift. This could save the world.

Time passed, life sunk itself viciously into Newt’s body and yet, everything returned here. An echo chamber.

_Do I really have a choice?_

He gazed at Hermann, chest rising and falling gently in sleep. They had never had a choice. Not really. Newt had made a decision and, like his cursed namesake, there had been an equal and opposite reaction.

He closed the article.

One thing had been a choice, maybe. One that hadn’t been fated, one that destiny hadn’t expected. Despite every reason and disagreement to the contrary, they had chosen not to face history alone.

They had chosen to do it together.

Newt sat in his empty echo chamber, time running back to meet him like an expectant dog, wagging its tail and showing its teeth for his decision.

Destiny wasn’t an empty room. He had Hermann.

Hermann, who, if he was to save the world and everything in between, needed to break into Newt’s brain, wake his worst nightmares, and go looking for the Precursors.

It had been going so well.


	29. What Remains to be Seen

“You want me to do what?”

“Alright, so just hear me out -”

“I want no part of it, absolutely no part of it.”

Newt sighed. He’d expected Hermann to reject the plan, but his point blank refusal to be involved was now spanning into territory that Newt didn’t know how to deal with. The argument had lasted throughout much of the afternoon, after Newt had finally plucked up the courage to bring it up.

Asking Hermann in the kitchen had probably not been a great idea. At least now they had spiralled out into the living room and there were fewer sharp implements which Hermann could shake at him.

“Look, we can’t go after the Precursors if we don’t know where they are! We just need to Drift a teeny-tiny bit to get what we need, wherever that is in my memory and-”

“Have you any idea how dangerous that is? There was a reason the program was scrapped, as you very well know. It’s remarkably naïve to think that delving into hidden parts of the brain would be at all-”

“It’s not going to be like that, it’s not like I can’t remember anything, it’s _their_ information we need to-”

“That makes it less dangerous, how?” Newt chewed his lip, the wave of frustration that overtook him feeling too much like hot anger. He was getting desperate; he couldn’t control the snap of rage that was building. Before the Precursors, he’d never been like that. He’d been persistent and loud, sure, but never so angry. He agreed that there were some parts of the Precursors that he never, ever wanted to uncover again.

“The whole point of asking you is because you’re supposed to help me,” Newt snarled and he knew he’d hit a sore spot, their unspoken pact; knew he’d gone straight for the throat.

The thought had him feeling sick.

“I am not _supposed_ to do anything, I won’t help you destroy yourself.”

“Oh, but you’d let the Precursors destroy the world instead?” He felt no satisfaction when Hermann didn’t respond to the accusation. His shoulders just sagged and he looked tired.

“I won’t help. That’s final,” Hermann said, “This plan is too dangerous, we need to find another way. I won’t see you kill yourself.”

If Newt even vaguely believed that Hermann would believe him, he would threaten to find someone else. But Newt was sure Hermann knew him well enough to know that he could never do it without him.

He sighed and swallowed the lump of cooling, bitter anger in his throat. “Please,” he begged, “You’re the only person who can get through here.” He tapped his head, feeling the shame bubble in him. _You’re so messed up,_ a cruel voice inside him sneered, _even you can’t navigate this mess._

“If we don’t get their location, they’ll win and… they’ll come back. I can’t do that again, dude. I can’t face them coming back Hermann, it scares the hell out of me. This is the only thing I can think to do that will stop that from happening.”

Newt regretted the look of defeat on Hermann’s face. He hated himself for making him look so tired, so much older all of a sudden.

“They won’t ever control you like that again,” Hermann said and Newt wanted to be sick at how bereft Hermann sounded, like Newt was already gone and the war was already lost, “I know that I can’t stop you once you have a plan in your head, and we have too little time to devise another. And I, too, am… worried about the Precursors. So, if I have to do something, I am better to at least try and control the outcome; I will go with you. But if I think it is too dangerous at any point, we stop, is that understood? And I’m only doing this under extreme duress.”

Newt nodded but felt no relief. There was a long, tense pause wherein neither of them moved, like two wild animals waiting for the other to flinch.

“Alright,” Newt said at last, “Er, flip a coin for who tells the Rangers?”

He only narrowly dodged the cushion that Hermann flung at his head.

 

* * *

 

 

Hermann fumed silently as Newt allowed a technician to arrange the Pons helmet on his head. He looked uncharacteristically obedient, allowing the simple procedure without any words of derision or complaint. No _I can do it myself._ No barbs at Hermann, who was allowed to adjust his own equipment. He didn’t even mention how much the room they found themselves in was remarkably similar to his cell, with the Rangers watching behind glass. This time, however, the glass was clear, allowing Hermann a good view of their disapproving gaze. Telling them about Newt’s hypothesis had been painful, convincing them to agree to another Drift had been almost impossible. It had taken a little over a week to accomplish it, with only the stress of needing the location eventually swaying them.

The cold air, ever present in these little steel rooms, seeped into Hermann’s jacket and he shuddered. His leg ached, but he crammed that thought away for a less pressing moment. Probably unhealthy, he supposed, considering that repressed memories were exactly what they were seeking in Newt’s head. Or, at least, repressed information. Probably hidden in Newt’s brain by the Precursors when they left, to prevent him from retaliating.

As much as he hated to admit it, Newt’s plan made sense. Which was probably what made it so infuriating to see him risk his life and sanity again. The Precursors had Drifted with Newt, so everything about them and their lives had to have been accessible to Newt over the course of ten years. Their location in the Anteverse, their base as the Rangers took to calling it in an almost comical military fashion, was by far the least of it, though Newton had never thought it relevant to make a note of it. That, or the Precursors had prevented him from doing so.

The Drift devices were finally set up, the button noticeably handed to Hermann and not Newt. Again, Newt didn’t complain. Usually that was enough for Hermann to smile, but now it made him feel awfully alone.

“We’ve rushed into this,” Hermann said, watching Newt for a reaction, but he only got a slight shrug in response. He was nervous, with good reason.

“I should have made more calculations… we could ask your therapist to be here maybe?”

“Hermann, just – it’s not gonna make a difference, man. There’s no other way to do this, alright?” Newt said. His voice shook a little. His therapist had put her opinion into the mix via a strongly worded memo, as had Dr Linda when they’d described the plan to the Rangers. Neither of them had been very positive. The long list of dangers in Emma’s email had been particularly off-putting, ranging from subsequent regression of recovery, mental collapse, false memories and even physical symptoms. Hermann was worried to notice that she’d also included in-Drift possibilities. Fake memories or empty spaces where Newt was inadvertently, subconsciously trying to hide trauma, both from himself and Hermann. Newt’s imagination was scary enough in his conscious mind; Hermann didn’t want to meet whatever he could defensively think up with his subconscious mind.

Hermann looked at the controls in his hand, then to the Rangers. Jake gave him a completely lacklustre thumbs-up through the glass that Hermann didn’t reciprocate. Nate glared at his Drift partner, slapping away the thumbs-up with a verbal scold that didn’t make it through the glass.

“Hermann?” Hermann looked to Newt, who was trembling a little and trying remarkably hard to hide it. “I know this was my idea and all, and it’s still a totally really good plan and all…”

“Is there a point here, Newton?” Hermann teased.

“Yeah, no there is, the point is, well… er… I’m pretty screwed up in there,” Newt said and he nodded upwards, flicking his eyes up, “If you… you’ll probably see some things that really suck. And… and I suck, a lot. So. Sorry.” Hermann made a show of rolling his eyes, feigning his nonchalance. It didn’t calm his own frantic brain down, but it might settle Newton’s a little. Not that it would matter once they were both in each other’s minds again.

“I’m sure I already know quite how odd your mind is,” Hermann pointed out. Newt gave him a shaky smile.

“Are you ready?”

A sharp nod in response. “Ready.”

Hermann pressed the button, and opened the Drift.

The pull into the Drift was familiar and much less jarring than the others they’d shared before. Newt’s mind wrapped around his own, softening Hermann’s mental tumble into otherness. It felt secure, comfortable even.

Memories skittered by at speed; childhood, a pained adolescence, the first Drift with the Kaiju and his Drift with Hermann. He was tempted, just for a moment, to linger on that, sentimentalism warring with a scientific curiosity. He wondered how odd it would be to feel that memory from Newt’s perspective, the merging of their brains wherein Hermann could feel how Newt felt and thought, and Newt felt him too. He wondered if the moment would be reversed somehow, in an uncanny way, like seeing yourself in a photograph or through one of those fractalised telescopes.  

He allowed the moment to pass, others quickly filling the space. If he rifled through Newton’s memories without reason, it made him no different from the Precursors.

More memories, one of leaving the PPDC that jolted like an electrical current and then… everything seemed to slow. The next moment juddered like a paused VHS, stopping and starting. The colours faded and the image became blurry. Everything looked as if Newt wasn’t wearing his glasses. A thrill of something icy and fearful settled in Hermann’s thoughts. These were moments of Newt working peacefully at Shao Industries, without interruption, normal and easy. They moved syrup slow, some voices morphing and drawing out into slow, doubled baritones. Moments that didn’t feel real, days that felt manufactured to be identical and unperturbed.

Hermann watched Newt in the lab, hundreds of Kaiju-Jaeger hybrids spread out behind him in the large window. The lab was clinical but busy, a few scientists and interns bustling around with various instruments. Newt was dashing around, chattering like he always was, arms waving. Hermann frowned. The last time he had encountered Newt’s memories of the Precursors, his brain had been shattered, thoughts cracked like a mirror and parts of his mind carved out. Besides the odd feeling of slowness, Newt seemed normal here. Surely, Newt remembered the Precursors, surely his memory of those days wasn’t _this._

He watched Newt draw a model of something, some kind of molecule on a holographic program, circling it with vehemence as if to make a point and Hermann smirked, the familiar gesture bleeding through into his own memories. He looked around, wondering who Newt was arguing with.

What he saw made him jolt back instinctively.

The scientist to his right was staring at him, mouth gaped open like a long, screaming chasm, the bottom jaw dangling brokenly onto his chest like something dead. Hermann recoiled, but only managed to draw his eyes to another person, their face smudged as if their features had been bubbled away with Kaiju blue.

They were staring at him.

Everyone in the room, their faces horrifically deformed and misaligned, was staring at him.

Hermann almost pulled back entirely, grasping for the connection to cut the Drift, but his eyes caught on Newton at the last second. Newton, who was looping like a stuck tape. Drawing the molecule, underlining it, and then flitting back like a broken record to draw the same molecule again. Hermann glanced around at the distorted faces, their dead eyes staring at him.

“Newton,” he said aloud, his voice quivering as the memory seemed to _hear him_ , the people in it cocking their heads, “This is not how you remember this moment. This – this is impossible. All of this is impossible.” Newt, the memory version, or whatever this version was, didn’t stop drawing.

It was the only way Hermann could reason the impossible scene. The horror of this construct, and construct it was if Hermann had any grasp of the real world, was too vivid and too crafted to be anything but a conscious act of Newton’s mind. Or rather, a subconscious act. Facing up to memories was one thing, but allowing Hermann to see them for what they were, with no maze or imagery to mask them, was entirely another. Newton couldn’t choose what he was afraid of, but if they were to find what they needed, fear couldn’t win.

“You do not have to be afraid. You won’t scare me away with ghost stories, Newton, I need you to trust me. I need you to face the Precursors with me,” Hermann pressed. Newton’s consciousness had to be entangled as much with Hermann’s as Hermann was with his. If there was a chance of Newton hearing him, he hoped he’d listen. Hoped he’d take away the frightful cloth he’d thrown over the memories.

“I know it’s painful, but I need to see the _real_ memories. I need to see how you really remember them,” Hermann said.

The Newt he was watching stopped drawing. To Hermann’s great relief, the faces of the people around him snapped back into place, quickly busying themselves with their tasks as if they had never been staring at Hermann. They never had been.

“It’s not pretty,” Newt, the one that Hermann was sure was just a projection in his too-bright capitalist suit and his purple-tinted shades.

“I know,” Hermann said gently, “But neither is hiding it beneath boogiemen to scare me away, or hiding it from yourself. You’re not consciously trying to stop me but… if your subconscious needs convincing…”

“The monsters are a lot scarier in real life,” Newt interrupted. He looked at the holographic projection, the molecule replaced with a recognisable screen, the one Hermann had seen at Shao Industries when Newt had initiated his secret protocol. The sight made him shiver. “I guess you know that already,” Newt said. Hermann was about to reply when the lab drifted away, dissolving like smoke, like a piece of paper being dropped into a lake.

The room disintegrated in increments to reveal four solid walls, the real memory bleeding through until eventually, Hermann was stood in another identifiable room. Newton’s bedroom, the one that Hermann knew would contain Alice’s tank if he turned to face it. Something, presumably Newton’s real memory of the day, told him that time hadn’t shifted. Whatever placating scene Newt had overlaid this one with, whatever productive, energetic self he’d created to whizz around the lab in his memories, only covered what had really happened that day.

And what happened that day was that Newt hadn’t made it out of bed.

Hermann exclaimed softly when he saw Newton. His entire body was wracked with sobs, the bedsheets drawn up to his chin. He was almost wailing with the intensity of his tears. The last time Newton had sounded like that, Hermann had gone looking for him and found him still in his quarters, curled in his bed like stepping out from it would break him completely. Hermann had never asked what had brought it on; he knew that the answer was as likely to be ‘nothing’ as it was to be ‘everything’. But he had stayed there anyway, sat by his bedside without surety of what to do. In the end, he had rattled off every piece of data in his current research stream, and some of Newton’s too, until Newt had fallen asleep, his breathing calm and even and his hand halfway across the pillow to where Hermann was sitting. They never spoke about it and it didn’t happen again, but Newt had been in work the next morning.

“Oh Newton,” Hermann said softly as he took in the wrecked man in front of him. He knew from the memories that now coalesced around this one, real and untampered with, that this was neither the first nor the last time that Newt had given in to the pain like this. There were stretches of days, coloured with shame and grief, which told the same story. Some days Newt woke up and the Precursors seized his mind immediately and shook it like a rag doll, leaving him curled and sobbing. Begging them to leave.

Grief filled Hermann so quickly and so sharply that he too could feel tears on his cheeks, unsure if it was Newton’s agony that was seeping into his thoughts, or his own guilt at simply never _being here_. All this time that Newton had suffered and Hermann had never known. Had never checked because he was so sure that Newton was safe and had trusted him enough to think that Newt would just call if he needed help.

He took a moment to steady himself, pain bearing down heavily on him as he looked at the object beside Newt on the bed. His laptop. Covered with stickers as always, the screen glowing.

He didn’t need to read the screen to know what the unfinished email said. Newt’s memory filled that in for him with vivid detail.

It broke his heart all the same.

_Hermann. Hermann please come get me, I’m so scared that they’ll kill me or worse I think they’re planning worse dude and I don’t want to do it, Hermann come get me dude, come get me, please, I don’t know what this is, please come get me –_

Newt’s hand had deleted the message when he abruptly stopped crying an hour later. The Precursors didn’t listen when Newt begged them not to.

Hermann ignored the insistent glow of the tank behind him and sat on Newton’s bed, close enough to the sobbing body that he could have held him, if this had not been so long ago. He knew that Alice’s tank was still here, always, in Newt’s memory. Watching him. The Precursors, heavy and painful like a migraine in Hermann’s shared recall of this moment were ever present.

Their future didn’t have to be like this.

He closed his eyes and felt the awful, life-ending agony of Newt’s experiences pass through his own consciousness, interlocking with his thoughts and memories like opposite weaves in a basket. Newt’s life hadn’t ended there. In all the hurt and confusion, Hermann felt licks of warmth in the memories that flooded in last. The day he and Hermann had spent in the lab. Asking Matt for a stick of gum and watching his face light up in a bewildered smile. Telling Emma he’d had a whole nightmare-free night. Hermann cooking, sauce on his apron, bickering lightly. The splash of saltwater on his face, a hundred feet from the ocean with Hermann at his side.

He was, for a moment, more Newt than Hermann. It felt guilty and terrible, with so much self-loathing and loss that he couldn’t breathe, but there was so much love in him too. So much more than Hermann had felt in his life. So much compassion that was never lost, so much life that would still be lived because _dammit, I’m totally not gonna let them stop me being a rock star._

He also remembered exactly where the Precursors were in their little hive of Kaiju swarm. And Hermann was sure that they both, equally, felt satisfaction in that.

 

* * *

 

The Drift connection broke and Newt jolted in his chair like he’d been shocked. The Rangers were already moving about behind the window, headed for the door to their cell, and Newt gathered himself hurriedly in the sudden loss of intimate sound and feeling _._

He looked across at Hermann, who was bleeding from his nostril. It was only then that Newt felt the same sluggish stream from his own nose and he raised a trembling hand to wipe it away.

“Hermann?” he said. His voice cracked weirdly and it felt scratchy, like he’d just woken from a long nap.

Hermann seemed as disorientated as he was, but he looked up at Newt’s voice all the same and looked him over, his eyes unreadable and assessing. Newt tried to squash his fear. Hermann had just seen… well, everything the Precursors had done. Every thought he’d had, every day he’d just wanted to end it all, every emotional outburst and times he’d pleaded with them to let him go. Ten years of _too much_ crammed into about ten minutes of Drift. It was likely that Hermann had only been able to really take in a small portion of it, to sort through enough memories to form a vague image, but that was enough. Drifting with Hermann that first time had been enough to understand so much about him that Newt had never even begun to fathom, even if he’d only been able to focus half on Hermann and half on the Kaiju. The thought of what Hermann knew of him now made his stomach churn.

He waited for the condemnation. _You’re pathetic_ , he expected to hear first, perhaps. Or selfish, maybe, was the better descriptor. He’d begged and cried and twisted to try and escape them because it _hurt_ but he hadn’t considered what they could do to the world until it was far, far too late. Maybe Hermann wouldn’t say anything. Maybe he’d take one look at him and never want to speak to him again.

Newt straightened his back. He’d known what Hermann would see when he’d first suggested this. The choice had never really been his.

If Hermann never spoke to him again, it was less than Newt deserved.

“Are you alright?” Hermann said. Newt blinked, waiting for the punchline. The door to their right opened and the Rangers came rushing through, already moving to help them with the Pons units. Newt didn’t reply. It would come any second now; the resentment, the hatred. Everything he deserved.

“Newt? Are you okay?” Hermann repeated. The Pons was off his head suddenly and the loss of the weight made him feel lightheaded. He nodded.

“I – yeah.”

Hermann smiled, shaky with adrenaline and Newt waited still, but it didn’t come. He knew it must, eventually, that this pardon couldn’t be for real because he didn’t _deserve_ that, but for now it seemed that Hermann was willing to let the moment pass. Newt didn’t know why or how, but he wasn’t about to look the gift horse in the mouth. Or whatever that dumb phrase meant.

“Did you get it?” Nate asked. Hermann looked at Newt and, for a moment, Newt wasn’t sure if the grin was his or Hermann’s.

“We have it. We have their location,” Hermann said and, with a look that stole Newt’s breath from his chest, added, “And I want to be there when we kill these bastards once and for all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used a word that doesn’t exist in the English language in this 4000 word monstrosity and I apologise for that. On that note, critique me, tell me what you like/don't like, lemme know how I can be a better writer! 
> 
> (also omg, there's only one more chapter left on this fic??? I dunno how that has happened so fast?)


	30. The Motion of Letting Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter is here, I can’t believe how long this fic got! This chapter is really long so get some snacks and a drink! Just a cautionary warning for this chapter, there’s a bit of swearing and mentions of blood.

The Shatterdome shivered with life as the offensive drew nearer. There was no official name for the plan, given that it was a strictly off-the-books operation, but “Retribution Day” had stuck with some of the Jaeger pilots and Hermann hated it. There was something distinctly locker room about it, a nod to the pilots lost in Tokyo with no consideration for the other losses. The other losses, for Hermann, being Newt.

Newt became quieter as the Dome grew louder in the next few days, retreating more often into their shared room or the bathroom to avoid Hermann’s stilted chatter. He’d been trying harder to draw whatever the problem was from Newton, but he knew that there was only so much he could do to push him before Newt caught on. It didn’t help that the atmosphere in the corridors was so tense. The mission was entirely unauthorised, unethical even, since it placed the planet in peril if it went wrong. The whispers in the Jaeger yard were deafening and Hermann tried to spend as little time as he could there in the final preparatory days. Newton didn’t object when he left the apartment, merely nodding and staying back obediently.

Hermann _hated_ it.

The night before the offensive came all too quickly and the Dome died down for just an evening, the air thick with an apprehension that crept under their apartment door and settled on their clothing, in their hair, in every place they looked. The Dome felt dead already, like they were living in a strange future-world wherein they’d already lost. Hermann spared a thought to the Jaegers several floors above them, standing in silent sentry. Observing the great mountains that built them and grew into their bodies in the Drift as they crumbled and turned to dust. Drift helmets lay still, with no guarantee of which ones would be violently disconnected the next day, which ones would return empty and bloody.

Hermann held back a comment on the way Newt was no longer playing with his food at dinner, merely staring at it as if it would turn to ash in his mouth. His own fork was twisted in the noodles with no intention of bringing the food to his lips, and he sighed, placing the plate on the floor. Newt didn’t look up from his place beside him on the sofa, continuing to stare at his food with a hollow look.

Hermann moved to speak but Newt’s heartbroken eyes tilted up to meet his and he crumbled a little, words dying in his throat. Tomorrow they would face the beings that had taken Newt’s life in the past ten years _._ There were no words to fix that. But that didn’t stop the feeling inside him that there was something more to his apprehension. Newt had a capacity for emotion that exceeded anyone’s; even the complex cocktail of thoughts regarding the offensive wasn’t enough to complete the puzzle. Hermann just didn’t know how solve it.

“You’ve been quiet since the Drift,” Hermann pointed out, “Did something go wrong?” He hated himself for hoping that Newton would say yes, that it was something physically wrong, something he could fix. Newt shook his head.

“Whatever it is, it’s-”

“It’s nothing,” Newt said. It was harsh, sharp. Hermann scowled.

“There’s no need to snap at me, I’m only trying to-”

“I’m not snapping.”

“Evidently you are, otherwise I wouldn’t have said…” he trailed off. Newt’s eyes were wet with tears as he looked away from Hermann, hiding his face.

“It’s nothing.”

“No, it is something,” Hermann pressed. Newt’s uncharacteristic lapses into silence were a new addition to his personality, a gap left by the Precursors. Hermann inched himself forward on the sofa. He tried not to crowd Newt’s space, but he dipped a little to try to catch Newt’s eye line.  It had become more necessary recently to coax Newt to words. Hermann found it hard to chase Newton’s thoughts into the open once he withdrew.

“Newton,” Hermann said softly, “I want to hear what you have to say.” Newt refused to meet his eyes.

“I… you can tell me I suck, you know,” Newt said at last, “I’m not gonna get angry or…or…” Hermann frowned.

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“I keep waiting for you to say it and you never do and I’m so, so tired of being scared all the time,” Newt said, his voice wobbling with tears. Hermann felt it like a kick in the chest and he moved forward, snatching his hand back at the last second before it reached Newt’s knee.

“You don’t have to be scared of anything,” he said, “least of all me.” Newt gave a humourless laugh.

“You know, I noticed you,” he said softly.

“I’m sorry?”

“Even when the Precursors were in my head, like, I was pretty distracted and stuff, but I noticed you. You’re crazy different from before.” Hermann’s frown deepened.

“And you’re not?” he said defensively, immediately regretting it. For a second Newt looked surprised but then a small, assenting chuckle erupted from him.

“Well, yeah, but I mean… you’re a lot happier now. I mean, not right now. Not now I’m back, because you’ve got to babysit me all the time, and you have better things to do, and I know you’re not happy _now_ but-”

“Newton, stop, that isn’t true,” Hermann tried to interject.

“You were happier when I left,” Newt blurted, his voice raising, “Every time I saw you after the war, you seemed happier. You were always experimenting and making cool things and running around and I never saw you like that before. In the lab, you were always ‘stop it, I’m grumpy’ and ‘I never smile because life is crummy, Dr Geiszler’” Newt put on a tacky rendition of Hermann’s accent, but Hermann didn’t feel the sting of the caricature.

“You were happier after I left and no wonder dude, I’ve done so many things that – that _suck_ and now I’m back making your life hell again, making you do things you don’t want to do. And now you know everything, all the… the selfish, _stupid_ -”

Hermann tried to interject but Newt let out a sob that cut him to the core. It stole his breath long enough for Newt to continue, nervous energy hitting grief halfway to somewhere dark and bubbling up before Hermann could stop it.

“And I get it,” Newt said, and that only made Hermann feel worse. There was nothing _to_ get, none of this was true. “I know being in a lab with me made you unhappy, because I hated living with me too after I left. I finally got what made you so miserable dude, it was _me_. It’s not just the Precursors - I’m reckless and pathetic… and then the Precursors came and I just – I’m so _sorry_. I thought I could do it, I thought I could hide it but I can’t. I’m a _monster_.”  

Newt’s voice cracked and that seemed to break the floodgates as tears began to spill down his face. He raised his hands to hide his face, in a way that spoke more of shame than pride. Hermann felt like he’d been stricken a blow, like there was steel straightening in his spine and making his body tingle with pain.

Was this really how he’d made Newt feel? Was this how the Precursors had worked themselves into Newt’s mind, by feeding him doubts and insecurities? About _Hermann_? Was this really what Newt thought he’d seen in the Drift?

 “Look at me Newton,” Hermann said firmly. Newt didn’t look up for a long while and when he did, it was hesitant. His eyes were red.

“I am not unhappy,” Hermann said evenly. Newt opened his mouth to argue but Hermann held up a hand again.

“No, listen to me, I am not unhappy. I saw none of that in the Drift. What I saw was a man who did what he could to survive and he succeeded. Newton, God, you’re a fool to think that I don’t – I’m intensely proud of you. If I were in your position, I doubt I could have fought as hard as you did. Your actions were so much stronger than you know. You won, and we’re going to win again tomorrow.”

“You don’t know that,” Newt countered. Hermann sighed. He knew that there was no answer to that that wasn’t a lie.

“You are not a monster,” Hermann said, “You are not a bad man. What I saw only made me surer of that and you do not need to be afraid that that will ever change. And as for me, I am not sentencing myself to be here and I’m not here out of obligation. I’m here because I am happy to be able to spend time with you.”

Newt’s gaze flickered away, his Adam’s apple working in his throat. Hermann had never once considered that his own happiness would so affect Newt’s esteem, that the things Newt derided himself for were linked to his impact upon Hermann.

“You are a good man and you’re not ruining anything,” Hermann continued, “I am happy. In fact, if it wasn’t for you… well, I… I don’t believe I would have survived the war.”

Newt snapped to face Hermann then, mouth parted a little in surprise.

“What-”

“I was unhappy during the war, Newton, yes, but not because of you. I was frightened. As you well know, I was terrified and stressed beyond belief. We both were,” Hermann admitted, “I slept little, and I spent my waking moments in fear that, at any moment, a Kaiju would come through the defences and that would be it. I very much felt the weight that was on our shoulders. I was not happy. Not since the first Kaiju appeared, maybe even before that. And it made me bitter. It uncovered sides of myself I had never encountered and I defended myself poorly against what I perceived as the worst of the world. I am not proud of many parts of myself during the war.”

Hermann let his head hang for a second. He recognised only parts of the man he was back then, the person that the death and the fear and the Kaiju had constructed inside of him. He understood his equations better, understood how to make a metal man. It hadn’t been a comfort. 

And then, Newt came along.

 “I believe that your presence was the only thing that _did_ work for me, Newt.”

Newt’s surprise turned to disbelief, his expression hardening cynically. Cynical was such an alien look on him, his face usually so open and faithful.

“I couldn’t stand you at times, nor you I, I think. But I do know that it somewhat worked for both of us. I’m not proud of the way I acted, but the only thing keeping me sane, I believe, was the fact that I had you driving me consistently mad.”

“You’re not helping, Hermann,” Newt grumbled. His tears, at least, had ceased, if only through curiosity.

“I mean to say that I still… enjoyed your company.” Hermann wrung his hands, feeling inept. What was once an unfamiliar feeling was now becoming a common occurrence around Newton, “I still enjoy your company, as a matter of fact, even if it has always driven me a little bit mad at times. And it is true that I have felt more like myself in the last ten years; I remember the person I was before the Kaiju. I have done more, I have been more the man I was when we first corresponded. But the man I was during the war… needed you, very much. Even if I allowed myself to vent my frustrations on you, or to allow my fears to manifest in cruelty, I do not think I would have survived the war without you, Newton. I always regretted you leaving more than I regretted anything else. I want you here, now, as much as I dare say I need it.”

Newt had gone utterly still but Hermann could see how intently he was listening by the flick of his eyes. Hermann felt like he should feel exposed, embarrassed even, but he didn’t care if Newton knew everything about him. As it was, everything he had, he shared with Newt. Everything he was was already caught up in what Newt was too.

“I changed a lot because of circumstances,” Hermann said, “And I believe you got me through that. I’d do anything to have that same honour. But you must believe me when I tell you that I do not hate or blame you for whatever you think you’ve done to my life. I can assure you that it is quite the opposite.”

More tears slid down Newt’s face and he hiccupped a sob that made him sound so alone that Hermann ached. He was unsurprised when Newt lunged forward, wrapping his arms tightly around Hermann’s stomach. It was a vivid reminder of the hug Hermann had given Newt outside the elevator, months ago, but that didn’t taint the feeling of warmth that spread in Hermann’s chest.

“I’m sorry Hermann,” Newt sobbed, “I’m really, really sorry.”

“For what?” Hermann mumbled gently, taking the opportunity to finally, _finally_ , wrap his arms around Newt. The past week had been a floor of eggshells, and the opportunity to hold Newt together didn’t pass by unappreciated.

 “I dunno,” Newt coughed weakly into Hermann’s shoulder, “I dunno, I’ll get back to you on that.” He chuckled wetly, still crying, but with a genuine warmth that Hermann had missed. “For everything, I guess, I’m sorry for everything.”

“You needn’t be sorry,” Hermann assured, “There are many things I’ve wished you’d apologised for, but this mess isn’t one of those.”

“I’ve done awful stuff Hermann,” Newt whispered, “I know it wasn’t really me, but it _was_ me.” Hermann closed his eyes, tucking Newt’s head under his chin and wishing that Newt wasn’t right. But he was, and neither of them could change any of that now.

“I know,” Hermann said softly, and he could feel Newt’s tears soaking his shirt, “But that will never happen again Newt, I promise. After tomorrow, we’ll never have to think about them ever again.” He felt Newt nod into his shoulder. Hermann had never believed himself to be strong, but he felt bolstered by Newton’s presence. Not because of his weaknesses, but because of the way he never failed to overcome them. He thought about the sides of himself he’d never known until he met Newton, the things that stayed with him after the war. Even the things he found in the Drift were like memories he’d forgotten, or habits he’d been waiting to collect.

Newton fell asleep like that, eyes puffy with salt and his arms still clasped around Hermann. Even the promise of the battle to come couldn’t bring Hermann to wake him from the bit of peace he’d found.

 

* * *

 

Matt was waiting for them outside as they made their way to LOCCENT the next morning. Newt was visibly nervous and he jumped when Matt placed a hand on his shoulder.

“You okay?” Matt asked. Newt nodded jerkily. It was a complete lie. Hermann had been up most of the night after Newt had woken violently from a nightmare at 2am, falling hard off the sofa. It had taken him hours to convince him that no, this wasn’t the Precursors placing ideas in his head, the plan was sound, they’re not making you do this. By the time Newt had managed to calm, Hermann had felt unsettled.

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want,” Matt pointed out, “You’re not needed in LOCCENT, I can wait here with you while Dr Gottlieb goes, if you like?”

“No, no I’d just go stir crazy if I waited here, I want to see if… I want to make sure nothing happens,” Newt said. They all knew full well that there was very little that Newt, or any of them, could do if things went wrong. The pilots out there in the field were in control of their fate now.

LOCCENT was busy with life when they got there, screens brimming with equations and models that turned Hermann’s mind turn to jelly. The idea of opening the Breach had been a thing of his nightmares for the past ten years and now, here they were, willingly ripping it open.

Humanity had an odd response to the button labelled “Do Not Press”.

Unsurprisingly, Newt recoiled from the activity around him, tucking himself closer to Hermann’s side and grimacing at the technicians who hurried by. Through the window, the Jaegers were beginning to cycle up, Drifts being opened like the fire of connecting neurones.

“Doctors!” They turned and spotted Jake, leaning over a console with Nate, who was speaking to a man that Hermann vaguely recognised as Tendo’s replacement. Newt corrected Jake as they drew closer to him, the first thing Newt had said to anyone since entering the Dome’s centre.

“Just Newt is fine,” Newt mumbled, almost inaudibly with all the clamour around them, but Jake looked to Hermann with a baffled look all the same. He responded with a shrug. It seemed like a small point to make, all things considered, but it was far from trivial. Newt’s focus, it appeared, was on anything except the mission.

Nate moved his attention from the man and turned to them gravely. “Alright, the Jaegers are already in place to open the Breach, we’re sending the unmanned carry systems over there now.” By ‘unmanned carry systems’, Hermann assumed he meant the rudimentary, although technically excellent, unmanned Jaegers that Hermann had designed. He bristled at the dismissal but comforted himself with the knowledge that at least he knew how difficult they’d been to make. The system themselves weren’t hard, but building something to withstand the sonic pressure they were set to carry was much trickier. 

“The Breach will open and then we’ll send them in. Hopefully we can hold back the Kaiju long enough with the manned Jaegers up top, otherwise we’re going to have those to deal with,” Nate said. He looked tired, the new pressure of his work showing all too clearly on his face.

“And once we’ve got the sonic machines down there, we’ll fire up your boosters around the location Newt gave us and sonic blast these guys to kingdom come,” Jake intervened. There was no cocksure grin to back it up, but he sounded confident. 

“I assume that I will be here to monitor the booster output?” Hermann said.

“Yep, you’re by station 12, Kidan is your primary operator,” Jake nodded to the console a few steps to their right, where an overworked technician was turning dials with a concentrated expression. He looked almost comically overwhelmed and Hermann felt concern shoot through him. If this didn’t work –

“Is Amara not here?” Hermann asked.

“No, she’s out there with Vik at the Breach. They took the new Jaeger out with them,” Jake said. He looked uneasy about it and Hermann knew he’d rather be out there with her. But Amara was a good fighter, and her connection with Viktoriya was strengthening by the day. Scrapper Malice was a new Jaeger, but if there was any way to test its efficiency in combat, this was it.

“We’ll make our way to our station, then,” Hermann said, “Good luck.” He shook the Rangers hands. He remembered a time when he might have saluted, when the war was still an exciting challenge and he wanted so much to fit in, to be a part of the effort instead of being the crippled, odd scientist in the basement. That time had passed long before now. In terms of years, he was by far the most experienced PPDC member in the room. He noticed that Newt didn’t shake their hands, dipping away before they could get the chance.

“You missed Ranger Pentecost’s speech,” Kidan said as they joined him at the console, “It was great, totally got me pumped for the end of the world, y’know?” Hermann scowled. Kidan had a notorious tendency for pessimism that was well known throughout the Dome. Gallows humour was common but there was a certain artistry to it that Kidan had apparently never grasped.

“The plan is sound, this will work,” Hermann asserted. He said it more for Newt than anyone, who was standing a few paces back from the console, like it might break if he stepped too close. Hermann had felt Newt’s fear like this before, in the Drift, waiting for Otachi to smash through the roof of the city shelter. There was no convincing Newt that this roof would hold steady.

He sidled closer to him, inching closer until his shoulder bumped Newton’s. Newt looked back at him, terror in his eyes and his teeth latching onto his bottom lip with nervous fervour.

“Hermann, what if-”

“Nothing will go wrong,” Hermann interrupted.

“Yeah, but if it does…”

“It won’t.” He placed his hand on Newton’s elbow, gripping it a little to ground him, pull him down from whatever thin-aired dangerous place his head was spiralling to.

“If they come back, I don’t want to go through that again,” Newt said, and this time, the gravity in his voice sent shivers down his spine, “Hermann – Hermann, if they come back, you’ve got to keep your promise, okay?” Hermann frowned.

“What promise?”

“You said you’d never let it happen again,” Newt stumbled, voice catching on a tremor, “If they come back, you’ve gotta promise you won’t let them get me again.”

“They won’t,” Hermann said.

“No, you’re not – _promise me_ ,” Newton said. Forceful, certain. So inescapably clear that Hermann couldn’t possibly mistake it.

Through the window, the unmanned Jaegers launched, filling the moment with a rumble that cracked the tension into splinters, piercing every bit of the heart that Hermann thought he’d protected.

Newton didn’t need to spell it out. The shake in his arm and the tears that had yet to fall made it clear what he wanted Hermann to do if they came back.

“No,” Hermann said firmly, dropping his voice to a whisper, “That’s absurd, I could never do that.”

“Hermann, _please._ ”

“No, Newton I won’t-”

“You promised me.”

“I won’t kill you!” Hermann snapped. His voice raised, and he saw Kidan look back at them. He ignored him, hand gripping Newton’s arm like a lifeline, like he could lose him at any second. Because he could. He really could.

“I will do a lot of things Newton, but even if they did return, I would not give up on you after all this time. We would find a way,” he said.

“You don’t know that. I’d rather be dead than have them in my head again, Hermann. You don’t know what they’re like, what they’d do to me,” Newt said. Hermann met his eye, and there was a moment where, just for a second, he felt Newt look into his side of the Drift. He’d been so used to seeing Newt’s complex, impossible brain that he’d never stopped to ask how much Newt had seen of his. He wondered how it was that Newt knew so little of how he felt, how different Hermann’s opinions were of him. Wondered if Newt had run from Hermann’s mind like it was sacred ground, like he didn’t belong there.

He hoped Newt saw everything. He hoped he saw everything Hermann would and couldn’t do. Hoped he saw that one perfect moment they had last shared in this very room, one arm flung around the other, connected without a single break for a few, jubilant seconds.

“I do know,” Hermann said, “I know.”

Newt searched his face for the truth, eyes following the lines that ten years had drawn. He nodded slowly.

“We’re going to win this,” Hermann muttered.

A beacon flared on Kidan’s screen and Hermann acknowledged it with a flutter of anticipation. The Jaegers were opening the Breach. His mind’s eye supplied the image, the beams hitting the water and creating a whirlpool of fire, the earth, the Earth, cracking beneath them like split skin.

“Breach opened!” someone shouted.

“Jaegers at the ready, carriers going in now!”

“We have three Kaiju, Cat 2, coming up!”

Jake’s voice made it easily over the clamour, weaving through the radios, “Hold steady guys, give ‘em hell.”

Hermann ignored the racket, keeping one hand on Newt’s arm and the other beside Kidan on the console. He watched the carrier trackers descend on the monitor, his breath catching as one of the lights blipped out suddenly.

“Shit, they’re hitting the Kaiju as they come up,” Kidan cursed, “Fucking blind Jaegers down there, they’re gonna get torn to bits.”

“We have enough for redundancy, they’ll make it,” Hermann said. The first one made it into the Anteverse, its signal cutting almost immediately. Kidan seemed a little startled by that but Hermann steadied him. It wasn’t unexpected. Their programming was inbuilt; from here on out, the carrier Jaegers had their orders.

“We have two more Kaiju coming up, they look big!” Amara’s voice crackled through the radio and Hermann’s stomach lurched. The Kaiju were coming faster than they’d anticipated.

“They’re cat 3. They- they look kinda like they have armour on the top, but if they have tough backs, they’re probably pretty soft on the underside.” Hermann’s head snapped up from the console at the voice that came through the radio and he looked behind him. Newton had taken one of the microphones from the desk, squinting through his glasses at the statistics on the monitor. He looked like he was going to throw up at any second, his face pale, but he met Hermann’s eye with determination. “They’re gonna get stuck behind the cat twos, like they’re on a really small conveyer belt, so you can use that to keep them back.”

He placed the mic down again but kept his eyes on the screen, giving Hermann a small smile as he did so. Hermann returned the smile, looking back to his own screen.

That was the moment everything imploded.

A warning sound erupted from the console and Kidan swore loudly, fumbling at the controls.

“What’s going on?” Nate asked, hurrying over.

“The boosters worked, the sonic machines were just turned on but they’re already shaking the Jaegers apart down there, they’re not going to hold,” Kidan responded sharply, “They’re gonna explode before they even make a dent on the Precursors.” Nate cursed, lending a hand on the console as Hermann began tapping on the screens. There had to be a loophole, something to stabilise –

Newt cried out beside him, the sound cutting through Hermann’s concentration like an arrow. He whipped around as Newt’s arm fell from his grip and he crumpled to his knees, clutching his head.

“Newton!” Hermann abandoned the console, dropping to Newt’s side as he curled over, one hand clawing at the ground in agony. He was making loud keening sounds, sobs mottling the noises. “Newton, what’s wrong?”

“I can’t, I – it _hurts_ ,” Newt gasped, ending on another cry.

“Hermann!” Nate called from the screen, his voice sounding panicked. Hermann waved a hand, attention solely on Newt.

“My head’s splitting, I can’t-” Hermann’s hands fluttered around Newt’s curled body, not settling anywhere, unsure of where the phantom pain was coming from.

“Hermann, the sonic machines won’t last like this!” Nate shouted from above him. People were shouting everywhere, the room exploding with sound as one of the manned Jaeger trackers flickered offline. A siren pierced the air, someone on the radio screamed and was cut short.

“The Jaegers are getting pummelled, we’ve got two more Kaiju coming up!”

Newt shrieked again, and that was when Hermann saw the blood. Not a slow dribble from his nostril, rather it gushed from Newt’s nose, splattering the floor in lurid crimson. Hermann recoiled, twisting his back to see the rest of the room. There was only chaos.

“Turn them off, turn the machines off!” he shouted. Kidan wheeled round.

“Are you kidding? If we turn them off, the Kaiju are going to make it through! The Precursors-”

“They’re killing Newton!” Hermann snapped. He turned his attention back to Newt, blood still hitting the floor with a wet smack, a dribble appearing from his ear.

“Turn them off!” Hermann cried, not looking away from Newt. No-one complied. The machines stayed on somewhere in the Anteverse, shaking apart the Precursors and burning a hole through Newton’s brain.

Newt sobbed into a scream and his scrabbling hand found Hermann’s, gripping it so tightly that Hermann thought it would break.

And then, it went lax. Newt’s screams stopped short and Hermann’s world collapsed as Newt slumped forward, his hand slipping from his.

Time slid to a halt as LOCCENT bustled around him, his hand smeared in blood. And, somewhere in the Anteverse, the end of the world was on its way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it’s a cliffhanger ending (please don’t kill me!) but I am writing a sequel. The plan is to publish chapter 1 on December 2nd. This is because I'm going to write a buffer but I’m doing NaNoWriMo this year with another project, so writing the sequel then would be too much! 
> 
> As for the sequel, there will be plot, there will be drama and there will be LOVE! For me, Hermann is more than ready for a relationship with Newt, which was obvious even in PRU. But Newt is not yet ready because of the trauma that came with the events of PRU and how he feels about himself/his relationship with Hermann after that. Post-PRU, I think it’s interesting that their “readiness” to be together, in my interpretation of them at least, swaps from PR1 and PRU. I want to give an honest depiction of their relationship and doing a quick happy ending for this fic didn’t fulfil that, hence my decision to write a (shorter) sequel.
> 
> (also, this chapter dealt with some of my headcanon for Hermann, which is that the grumpy, argumentative Hermann in PR1 is more a result of the stress he was under – in other circumstances, I think he’s much lighter and more excitable. PRU did a lot of things wrong, but Hermann in that aligns more with a Hermann that would have loved Newt’s letters. It’s maybe an unpopular opinion but I think the “real” Hermann is often masked by a façade of what he wants to be perceived as: respectable, mature, proper etc and that PRU Hermann is much closer to a Hermann who has grown out of the need to be seen as anything else. Very, very happy to talk Hermann headcanons if you agree/disagree!) 
> 
> Sorry for the long note. Thank you so much to everyone who has read, kudosed and commented – I love you guys so much!


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